Under These Scars
by Okami Rayne
Summary: Fate's changed the game but it's not over between the players. With Kusagakure's mission as the final round, Neji's agenda is finding his freedom. Shikamaru's agenda is forgetting his fear. But when an old and unfinished game threatens to pull Shikamaru back into the shadows of his past, Neji must make an impossible choice; his own destiny or Shikamaru's darkness. (Part 4 of BtB)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: NARUTO and its characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement intended.

Title: UNDER THESE SCARS

Pairings: ShikaNeji/NejiShika, Shikaku/Yoshino, Kakashi/Genma

Rating: M / R (language, themes, violence etc.)

Genre: Drama/Angst/General

Summary: Fate's changed the game but it's not over between the players. With Kusagakure's mission as the final round, Neji's agenda is finding his freedom. Shikamaru's agenda is forgetting his fear. But when an old and unfinished game threatens to pull Shikamaru back into the shadows of his past, Neji must make an impossible choice; his own destiny or Shikamaru's darkness. NejiShika, ShikaNeji [SEQUEL to Break to Breathe]

**Timeline**: Shippuden. Neji and Shikamaru aged 17-18 (post-Hidan and Kakuzu arc and pre-Invasion of Pain arc) One week after the events in REQUIEM.

* * *

**UNDER THESE SCARS**

by Okami Rayne

**Chapter One**

_What the hell was I thinking?_

Not the first time Shikamaru had asked himself that question. And not the first time it had gone unanswered. No doubt about it though; it wasn't thinking that'd led him repeatedly into the forests this past week. It wasn't _thinking_ that'd redirected him from friends and family…bringing him to stand at a grave belonging to a monster, rather than the grave belonging to his sensei.

_I can't come to you with this, Asuma…_

Not then, when it mattered, and sure as hell not now, when it was much too late. Shikamaru knew what that made him, both then and now…but he'd rather risk being a coward than risk being crazy.

_Or risk being something worse than both…and if that makes me a gutless bastard, then I'm okay with that. I have to be._

Sure. He just couldn't admit that standing over Asuma's headstone.

Sighing, Shikamaru reached into his pocket. A metallic _chink_ of a spring toggle, a brief lick of heat. Smoke puffed up and a snapping lid killed the flame. Shikamaru stroked his thumb over a small groove denting his sensei's lighter. A comforting and familiar weight…that'd never felt heavier in his hand.

"_I'm counting on you, Shikamaru…"_

"I know…" he murmured, smoke rolling on the words.

But Asuma wasn't the only ghost passing through the corridors in his mind. In the resounding emptiness of the moment, filled only by the soft morning twitter of birdsong and the routine snuffle of deer sifting through the loam, a woman's voice echoed up from Shikamaru's memories; her words far more haunting than at the time he'd first heard them.

_"I've learned that we can stand in the light as much as we want…hoping that it will purify and burn away the mistakes we've made…But the truth is, it's only when we stand in the light that we cast our darkest shadow. We are forced to face it…and that darkness is as inescapable as the truth of who and what we are."_

Tsubasa Kitori. Hanegakure. Neji. The priorities and people that'd dragged him ten steps back when he'd only ever been one step ahead in a never-ending race to forget.

_Forget what I can't even remember…_

Irony. Bitter as ever and souring fast in Shikamaru's gut.

"_If it's over and done with then why are you still so scared?"_

Shikamaru stiffened, heard Asuma's deep tones falling beneath the rising female whisper.

_"Our fate is as fixed as our shadow. It cannot be removed from us, no matter what shade of light we place ourselves under. The shadow remains."_

Shikamaru pocketed the lighter, pressed his chapped lips around the end of the cigarette slotted between his fingers and took a slow pull, shuttering his eyes. To think, he'd dismissed Kitori's words as fatalistic babble – the nattering of a victim too weak to work for a future not dictated by the past.

_I won't live that way. I made that choice two years ago, didn't I?_

Didn't he?

More silence in place of an answer. Shikamaru felt that sharp hitch in his sternum, a nauseating question-mark hooked on his ribs. It almost reeled him in, but he was quick to catch it this time. Felt stronger for that sad little victory. He let out a breath, watched the smoke spiral over Hidan's grave like smoke from a joss stick. The thought of remembrance and prayer left him cold.

_Hn. Not a chance in hell…_

Hell. The place Hidan would burn one day, when his slowly dying body finally gave out. One day. But not today. Or any small number of tomorrows. Shikamaru hadn't planned it that way. This Akatsuki monster didn't get to check out fast. He didn't get the swift pardon of leaving this world. He got the punishment of lasting in it. Let the bastard learn to hate his devil-given immortality. Let him rot in an agonising and interminable end, knowing that all he could hope for was a drawn-out death and incremental decay…

_You'll go slow…suffering…silently screaming…_

A warm tickle at the revengeful thought, followed by a cold skitter of conscience. Shikamaru's shoulders stiffened against the chill, eyes narrowing.

_No. I'm not sorry._

Never sorry. There was no room for shame here. What the hell kind of purpose would that serve? None whatsoever. Funny how that logic left him feeling even colder.

"Shit," Shikamaru growled.

He shifted his weight between his feet, flicked the mostly ash-eaten cigarette onto the grave, grey flakes and dying embers peppering the rubble. He hadn't come here to think about Hidan's fate. He'd come here to dig up those parts of himself he'd used to destroy the bastard…and to bury those parts of himself that Neji had moved around just days before.

_And AGAIN…what the hell was I thinking?_

Shikamaru pressed his eyes shut.

Crazy, how Neji could still rearrange him that way. God-damned _cruel_, how the Hyūga could still get so deep under his skin, strip-mining his senses, excavating feelings better best forgotten and better left buried…lest he get possessed by a dangerous and reckless passion that left him unguarded, powerless and prey to fuck knows what if he ever let Neji…

_Let Neji what?_

Shikamaru's eyes snapped open as his mind snapped shut on the thought.

_Crazy…crazy..._

Crazier still, how those lethal Hyūga eyes had become so good at penetrating scar tissue and shadow, boring right down into the raw bloody magma of everything Shikamaru needed to keep buried beneath stone-cold logic and reinforced layers of better judgement.

_Oh yeah? Where was better judgement the other night?_

Hands down, he'd started it the last time. Let the landslide of lust and longing take him before his brain and better judgement could get a toehold. As for Neji? He'd had no traction whatsoever. Drugged and probably thinking he was dreaming, he'd gone down under that landslide because he hadn't known up from down at the time.

_God..._

Dropping his brow, Shikamaru dug the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets, pressed hard until colours fizzed and folded into black. He shook his head, choked out a bitter laugh. Shit, what a mess. A massive mess he'd aimed to sweep under a massive rug of denial. It might've worked, if Neji's words about his father didn't keep pulling said rug out from under his feet.

"_My father?"_

"_He knows."_

"_Knows what?"_

"_What I did to you."_

Dread slithered through Shikamaru. He gripped it before it could worm any further, felt it wreathing in his mental fingers. He wrestled with the stupid emotion and beat it back with logic; Neji's words were just illogical ramblings brought on by opium-induced paranoia. Shikamaru's father had never said anything or done anything to suggest that he knew what'd happened that night. And theoretically, even if his old man _did_ know – which he didn't – better that he thought his son and Hyūga Neji had seriously fought and hated each other for a while rather than…

_Than what? Than know about this…this THING between us…that I just can't…_

Can't what? Run away from? Walk away from? _Stay _away from?

Shikamaru raked his fingers over his scalp, eyes squeezed shut.

_Just one fucking kiss…and you decimate me, Hyūga…_

Neither of them could win this game. And if they kept on playing it didn't take two alleged geniuses to guess the stupid simple outcome. Shikamaru knew it as surely as he'd always known it…right from the first kiss…and ever since the last…

They were both destined to lose to each other.

_God but I know it. I know it in my gut…_

Which made Hyūga Neji more dangerous to Shikamaru's world than the denial he'd used to build it.

_And knowing that about you…about what you do to me…still tears me up…_

_"Then our scores are even, Shikamaru. Because feeling as I do about you still breaks me apart."_

Breath snagging hard, Shikamaru's legs folded beneath the weight of those words and he sank into a crouch to keep from going to his knees. Good. Let his weakness bring him closer to his strength. Let his fall with Neji bring him closer to the ground, closer to the grave he needed to bury everything in and closer to a game he at least had a hope in hell of winning…not for his sake, but for the sake of promises and people too precious to lose.

"_I'm counting on you…Shikamaru…"_

"I know…" he breathed again. "I know…"

Yes. He did know. He knew how to do _this_. Knew he could find the calm and calculated pieces he'd arranged inside himself when he'd set out with Kakashi and his Team to play the game and win it – despite the grief, despite the guilt, despite the godforsaken sense of having lost what mattered most.

_Never again…_

Shikamaru's eyes hardened, heartbeat heavy in his throat.

_I may be a coward and I may have come close to crazy…but I will protect my comrades…and the children of this village…whatever the cost…_

Strength came. Shikamaru felt it. It filled him from the feet up, as if the blood of his sensei's killer was water in his roots, as if his revenge, his cold rational revenge, had created some reservoir of power to draw on.

This clarity, this fresh perspective…was what he'd come for.

Breathing deep and slow, Shikamaru stood with an ease that defied the effort it had taken not to crumble just moments before. There was a stillness about him as he lit up another cigarette, taking his time to watch the flame dance before he killed it, letting the smoke curl high before he pulled on it, the cigarette's ember glow burning deep in his eyes.

_I won't fail anyone else the way I failed you. I promise._

No more second-guessing strategy. No more trusting impulse and instinct. He'd tried to do that a week ago by charging headlong into a critical situation with those crazy-dangerous chimaeras.

_Stupid move._

For more reasons than the glaringly obvious, at least where Neji was concerned. Funny how Shikamaru felt all the more foolish now, knowing that he hadn't had to search that far or dig that deep to find the reassurance he'd been looking for. This grave, this unholy ground beneath his feet, was all the validation and all the vindication he'd ever need to know that he could do what needed to be done. It was just like Neji had said, stupid simple and subtle as a knife.

"…_for the sake of the mission, I trust you'll do whatever's necessary."_

Shikamaru's jaw ticked, a jet of smoke streaming from his nose. "It's never just about the mission."

He had a deeper incentive. A motive more pressing than orders and obligations. He had an oath. He'd sworn a promise…and losing Asuma had sealed it forever in his heart.

_And I'll bury anything that gets in the way of that promise._

Including the past and all its unnamed phantoms. Phantoms like the one he'd killed two years ago, a faded face in the back of his mind, buried six feet deeper than the dying and the dead.

* * *

"Is it dead?"

"Smells dead. Looks dead."

"You sure?"

"Well its head ain't attached to its body. But then I kinda wonder that about you sometimes, lovebird."

"Shut up!"

"Kiba," Neji cautioned through the headset, his deep voice cutting short the beginnings of a verbal sparring. "Sitrep. Now."

Kiba smirked at Naruto's gesticulated insult and smoothed a palm over his bloody jacket, pausing at his shoulder. He gripped the joint, rotating with a crunch of muscle. "Got that weird-smellin' root that Ino wanted. The dino-birds are down. Decapitation works just fine on _them_. But uh…" He paused and looked across at the huge insect head that Naruto was kicking between each foot, its massive compact eyes glistening like obsidian discs in the sunlight. Kiba's nose crinkled in disgust as the giant mandibles wiggled and clicked. "Dunno where the cockroach-thing scuttled off to. But he left his big ugly head behind."

"Shino and Sai are on it," Neji dismissed. "Your shoulder?"

Kiba arched a brow and glanced sidelong at his right ear as if the radio signal had got garbled. "You worried about me, Highness? Gee, I feel all warm inside."

An icy silence down the line.

Naruto stopped playing ball with the bug-head and looked up, scratching at the blood crusted at his jaw. "Neji, where's Sakura? Is she ok?"

"Better than," Sakura's voice chirped in their ears. "Tenten tested out Shikamaru's theory. He was right. The stinger-cat poison is thick enough to coat weapons. And Ino's antivenin works perfectly."

"Like a charm," Tenten said. "I'm going to check in with Chōji this afternoon. See if his clan worked out how to graft that scorpion carapace into armour."

Kiba whistled. "Neat stuff. Team 10 are makin' us look bad."

"Then get ready to step up, Inuzuka," came Neji's curt response. "All units exit the Training Grounds and ensure you check in with Shino, even if you feel fine. The last thing we need is an infestation."

"Ugh." Naruto grumbled, scratching at his throat in reflex paranoia. "Vampire fleas…that's so messed up…"

"Do not underestimate the brilliance of these insects," Shino's voice skittered over the line, carrying an irritated buzz at such blatant disrespect. "Take for instance the cockroach hybrid you and Kiba thoughtlessly decapitated. It will survive for over a week, even without its head."

"_Thoughtlessly_ decapitated?" Kiba scoffed, letting the information roll over him – but not the insult. "Man, we put some serious strategy into that. Shikamaru woulda been proud."

"Shikamaru…" Shino uttered the name. Just as selectively as his dog-nin teammate, the bug-user made a beeline for any perceived offense. "Shikamaru should have come to _me_ to remove the tics. Why? Because the sterilised samples collected at the hospital died soon after they were extracted. Once again, I was overlooked."

"A mistake rectified by your assignment to this mission, Shino," Neji said, dissolving the argument in an instant. "Now, everyone regroup as planned. Except for you, Kiba."

The dog-nin paused in a patch of speckled sunshine, feeling like he'd just stepped on a landmine. A harassed sigh whistled through his nose, but he tried for a joke. "What? I get a timeout in the naughty corner?"

"Ino," Neji said.

"What about her?"

"Deliver that root to her immediately and bring her up to speed on the effectiveness of the antivenin."

Kiba's amusement guttered out on a growl. "I ain't your lapdog, Neji."

A mock-thoughtful hum rumbled in Kiba's ear before Neji's voice took on a tone of subtle innocence that was way too condescending to be believed. "I'd send someone else to sniff her out, but as I recall, you have an _excellent_ grasp on her scent."

Kiba went rigid. His gaze cut across to Naruto. The Uzumaki appeared oblivious, his attention back on the twitching bug-head. Apparently Neji had adjusted the radio feed to tap Kiba's mic alone.

_Jackass._

A tiny bead of sweat trickled down Kiba's temple. He recovered on a snort, rolling his shoulder a couple of times. "You know I got a real good grasp of your scent too, Highness. Ranks in the sour department."

"And ask her to take a look at your shoulder," Neji went on, his voice gliding back into its neutral no-nonsense manner. "You haven't been wearing that shoulder-support and you refused the aftercare appointments."

"The fuck? You been stalkin' me or—?"

"Get it fixed, Kiba. And do it fast."

Teeth bared, Kiba sniffed the air and scanned the tree-line, not appreciating that he'd fallen prey to the Byakugan outside the battlefield. It rubbed hard against his predator/prey paradigm and the role he occupied in it. "Tch. Spare me the false concern. It's not like it stopped you from signing me up for these little test-runs at the crack-of-fucking-dawn, did it?"

"_You_ aren't my concern, Inuzuka. The mission is. By default, that includes your ability to function at optimum level."

"Tell it to the two dead dino-birds and the headless bedbug. Oh yeah, and that big pansy plant. I tore this shit up. And I didn't end up high on flower-juice with my doped-up ass bouncing off the hospital walls."

No response but for the crackle of static, a sound as tension filled as ice beginning to crack. Kiba smirked, tried to picture the look on Neji's face and decided he needed a bit more feedback to get imaginative. The dog-nin took a breath, ready to throw a little oil on the fire. Neji beat him to it – with a wet blanket of indifference.

"Don't get cocky," Neji cautioned, sounding so far from slighted that Kiba's mouth dropped down a little in disappointment. "Our intel on these creatures is vague and insufficient. Don't take this training session as an indication of what we might come up against."

"Whoa. That's real encouragin', Neji. You and Shikamaru could write a book on motivational speeches and how _not_ to do them."

Neji's displeasure whispered down the line like a chill breeze, but again, the anticipated conflict didn't come. "I understand that Akamaru's been vetted and cleared from quarantine. Is this correct?"

While any other evasion might've had Kiba's teeth gnashing, the mention of Akamaru picked up his spirits and pulled out a smile. "Yeah. Due to pick him up later today. You put Akamaru back in the game and you'll get your optimum level performance."

"I'd expect nothing less."

So far as expectation went, Kiba sure as hell hadn't expected _that. _Angling his gaze as if he could pin the tiny earpiece with a suspicious squint, the dog-nin scouted around Neji's words for buried sarcasm. He couldn't detect any. Wasn't sure what he felt about that – only knew that it wasn't warm or tingly. Ever since the Hyūga had gone all 360 on him, Kiba's gut had been in a tug of war fight between irritation and uncertainty.

_I hate that…_

Hated it more for the fact that Neji's leaf-turning experience wasn't something he could be justifiably pissed about. Anyone else would've seen it as progress. A good thing. Maybe even a _great_ thing. Anyone else would've welcomed it. But this strange ground that Neji's recent behaviour had knocked them onto felt uncomfortable. Wrong. Phony. Not good. Not great. And not in any way welcome.

_Smells bad to me…_

And screw what anyone else thought. Kiba hadn't done anything or said anything that suggested he was ready or willing to give up their longstanding animosity towards each other. And even if he _had_ foreseen a ceasefire at some point in the future, he hadn't counted on that ceasefire happening without his participation – or permission. And he sure as shit hadn't expected it to happen overnight.

_That night. Shikamaru's birthday…_

That's when the rug of conflict stretched between Kiba and Neji had been ripped out from under the dog-nin's feet. And hell, he'd _liked_ that rug. That rug had held familiar designs of aggression and patterns of defensiveness that made a mockery of Neji's satin-smooth and strait-laced image.

_You ain't all _that_ together, Hyūga. No one is._

Neji could hide all he wanted but Kiba _knew_ there was an animal in there, lurking behind the cool wall of civility. He'd seen it attack Hinata. Seen it attack Shikamaru. Didn't trust it. Wouldn't trust it until he'd cornered it and confronted it. They'd come close in Hanegakure, but not close enough. And Neji's bullshit attempt to be the 'better man' wasn't fooling the dog-nin. Not for a second. That itchy suspicion was under his skin and had been for a while. But Neji kept declawing him every time he attempted to scratch at it and get to the source.

_Tch. I ain't that easy to shake._

Apparently, neither was Neji.

Kiba's frown deepened, lips tight and jaw tense, tattoo-slashes hollowing and hardening his features into a rare expression of brooding.

"Kiba?" Naruto called, brow crinkled. "You okay?"

Kiba's head came up. He'd have shrugged, if it didn't hurt like a bitch. He cracked his neck instead, found a little relief and snorted. "Yeah, waiting for a round of applause I ain't gonna get."

Naruto patted his belly. "Hey, dinner is on Neji, remember? That's thanks enough."

"Yeah, gonna order the priciest steak I can get. Burn a hole in Hyūga's wallet."

If Neji was listening he offered no response.

Aware that he was being watched, Kiba flicked a glance at the treeline from beneath his lashes then trailed after Naruto. Restlessness followed a step behind.

_Dammit._

Growling, he shucked his blood-spattered jacket, trying to ignore the itch beneath his skin. He knew it wasn't dino-bird's vampire fleas…even those creepy little bugs didn't burrow _that_ deep. Or itch _this _bad.

_Guess it's just a feelin'…_

And he never questioned those. Just didn't have any useful answers – which was about as annoying as playing messenger boy. At the thought of his next destination his steps began to drag. He searched for a distraction, failed to find anything entertaining enough to hold his attention and blurted the next thing that came to mind. "Hey, Neji. You and Shikamaru gonna be joining us on this little dinner-date or what?"

Neji was silent a moment. "No."

"Look at that. It took you a _whole_ three seconds to bail on your underlings."

"I can't speak for Shikamaru."

Kiba's eyes narrowed a little. "You ain't speaking for yourself either, but hey, guess you never do."

"Rank is a wonderful thing, Inuzuka."

"Yeah, a chain around my neck. Bet you like that chain though. Can't imagine you cutting loose."

"I'm cutting this line, Kiba."

Kiba wheeled around in mock horror, walking backwards to keep pace behind Naruto, his eyes on the treeline. He shook his head. "Only thing you cut are corners. Every chance you get. You'll show when it suits, play the 'proper' social part and then piss off outta the blue."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Even at Shikamaru and Ino's birthday party. And now this little thing you got lined up. Paying for shit ain't the same as being present, Neji."

"I'd have thought you'd be happy at my absence, Inuzuka."

"That's not the point."

"You have a point?"

"Bite me. You just don't get it."

"And neither do you. My time is not my own right now."

"What? You sign your social life away when you became a Jōnin?"

"Hn. I wonder."

Maybe it was the tight way that Neji said it, or maybe it was just another feeling, but Kiba didn't push it any further. Wanted to. But didn't. "Yeah?" the dog-nin huffed, turning his back on the white eyes. "Well aren't you all cloak-and-dagger?"

"When necessary," Neji said, cutting the line.

"Yeah," Kiba muttered into the static, yanking the bud out of his ear. "I'm getting that."

* * *

_Kusagakure…_

The bright topographic map spread atop Tsunade's desk brought to mind another map; larger, yellowed with age and peeling off the walls, its crinkled body hanging on by threads of grimy tape – and the razor steel of a senbon.

_Genma._

Kakashi sighed mentally.

_Let it go._

He had. Well, if letting it go meant letting it lie.

_Like a sleeping dog…_

Wasn't that how Asuma had phrased it? And wasn't the sudden ache in his chest warning enough not to start thinking along those lines, let alone start walking them? Kakashi's right hand slid into his pocket, fingers stroking across the senbon slotted there until he felt the sharp tip slice into the whorls of his thumb. A cold sting and warm trickle.

Tsunade's voice brought him back. "Tell me again, Kakashi. Why Hyūga Neji?"

Kakashi's grey eye drifted up, along with his shoulders. "I can't think of anyone better suited to take my place on this mission."

The noncommittal shrug – and words – had Tsunade's gaze swinging up. And that gaze packed one hell of a punch. While being hit with the Hokage's scrutiny was preferable to being hit with her fist, Kakashi felt a little winded all the same. What made it all the more moronic was that he knew how to roll with these punches – better yet, he knew how to avoid getting hit altogether.

_But lately…_

But lately there was a strange and unseen fist pounding at his chest, beating the air from his lungs. Couple that fist with Tsunade's ferocity and it was like playing dodge-ball with Rasengans. To his credit and hard-earned experience, Kakashi held steady under her scrutiny until he sensed suspicion slipping into a deep and considering silence. It weighed down on the lightness of his answer. Was she waiting for a better one?

_Ah…_

Kakashi tucked his chin back, brows arched in innocent query. "You disagree, Hokage-sama?"

A faint smile tucked up one corner of Tsunade's mouth, but those amber eyes remained grave. "I don't disagree. And I don't doubt Hyūga Neji's ability insofar as this mission is concerned."

"Insofar as _this_ mission…" Kakashi echoed, drawing out the '_this'. _He wasn't psychic, but neither was he stupid – just unlucky. There was only one other avenue Tsunade could've been alluding to that had any connection or relevance to Kakashi and his reluctant involvement in Hyūga Neji's business. "You still have your doubts about his enrolment in ANBU?" he supplied, knowing that's what she wanted from him.

Brows furrowed, Tsunade folded her fingers together, elbows pinned atop the map. "I haven't spoken with Ibiki or Shikaku yet." Her gaze strayed over the room, out the window and across the village's sun-washed rooftops. "Hyūga politics is a messy business. When the Sandaime made ANBU a means of escape for the Branch family it didn't clean anything up…just swept it under the rug…"

Kakashi reserved comment, opting for the wiser tactic of watching, waiting…and peripherally wondering whether he'd cut a little too deep with the senbon. He tucked his thumb against his palm, blood slick between his fingers.

Tsunade sighed, steepled her index fingers and tapped them to her lips. "Neji sure is champing at the bit. Even all the A-Ranks he's been accumulating haven't taken the edge off his…" she searched for the word, "…_enthusiasm_."

Kakashi's brow sketched upward at the understatement. "And you're reluctant to address this 'enthusiasm'," he said, stating the obvious to speed things along.

Tsunade hesitated, searching for answers in his masked face. "Well?" she pushed. "All things considered, what do you think?"

"All things considered, I think it's none of my business."

Tsunade's brows flew up then crashed down over flashing amber eyes. She came forward on one elbow. "I made it your business when I brought you into my confidence regarding what I ordered Shikamaru to do in Hanegakure. I made it your business when I asked you to keep an eye on Neji. And I'm making it your business now to tell me whether you think he is irrefutably fit for ANBU or whether I should tell Shikaku to terminate his enrolment altogether."

Silence fell hard, left a dent in the room large enough to swallow the air.

Kakashi looked up at his fuming superior from beneath his tilted brow, the silver motes in his grey eye glinting like tiny needles. His voice came out cool and wooden as his expression. "I think that Hyūga Neji would make a fine ANBU operative, Tsunade-sama."

The flat delivery had Tsunade's face tightening with displeasure, leaving Kakashi to wonder just what the hell she wanted from him with regards to this Hyūga kid. God. The thought chilled him a little.

_I'm still the wrong man to ask…_

Maybe even the worst man where ANBU was concerned. He'd checked out of that circle of hell a long time ago. As Genma had so aptly put it, he'd cut and run. And somehow Hyūga Neji didn't strike him as the kind to bow out.

_Or crawl out…_

As Kakashi had done, dragging himself through trenches of red-tape and regret…

_Yeah…leaving Genma behind._

He twisted the senbon in his pocket, dragged another stinging wet line across his skin.

"You say you think he's ready," Tsunade said, "And yet you've encouraged him at every turn to take assignments outside of this village rather than wait for Ibiki or Shikaku to make a move."

Taking a gamble and playing the dumb card, Kakashi blinked at her, demonstrating artless confusion. "As I mentioned at the time, he was collecting his credits. I saw no reason not to encourage him. ANBU have a quota in the A and S-Rank departments. Opportunities became available. Pointing him towards them seemed the expedient thing to do."

"Hn. Funny you should say that, considering I told him it was an opportunity I was putting in his path rather than obstacle. The truth is I wouldn't even have thought to assign him if you hadn't suggested it…" her sentence trickled off then gained new direction. "It makes me wonder…"

"Wonder?"

"I asked you to watch him, not encourage him. If that's even what you're doing."

"What else would I be doing, Hokage-sama?"

Tsunade sniffed, drew back in her seat to critically assess him – as if distance would grant her a clearer perspective. "Distracting him? Delaying him? Maybe you're even trying to redirect him."

Kakashi studied her for a long moment. "Do you want me to?"

Tsunade's expression pinched, as if she'd been caught out. Not giving Kakashi time to analyse her reaction she sliced her palm across the maps on her desk, snorting. "To think you've even gone so far this time as to assign him _your _place in Kusagakure's mission."

At the mention of his withdrawal from the mission, that invisible fist struck a vicious uppercut, halving the air in Kakashi's lungs. And out of nowhere – at least nowhere he cared to mentally venture – an inescapable need to justify himself sprang up.

Kakashi's shoulders tightened, his voice a little rough. "You know why I can't go..." Tsunade's eyes softened at those hoarse words and the rest of Kakashi's sentence lodged at the back of his throat. He couldn't cough it up, or swallow it down. Great. He shook his head and looked away, disgusted at his brain's sudden failure to continue a week's worth of exhausted acting.

Across the room, Tsunade's chair creaked. "Kakashi," she breathed his name on a sigh, her tone so close to soothing that Kakashi inwardly stiffened against the threat of its comfort. "I understand why you requested to be removed from the mission." A guilty pause. "Upon reflection I realise it was thoughtless of me to assign you. Not to mention politically foolish…" And then, so soft it almost went unheard, "And far too personal."

Kakashi kept his focus on the window, gazing at his reflection. He blinked slowly and pretended not to hear.

Tsunade turned her head to follow his gaze, blonde strands swishing. "Perhaps I made the same mistake when I involved you in this ANBU business with Neji."

_Perhaps…_

And how revealing that was…both about the man he'd become and the man he used to be. Gazing at the silver-haired shinobi staring back at him in the glass, he wondered if perhaps those two facets – those two _faces _– of himself weren't so far removed from each other as he'd have liked them to be…despite the years, the distance…

_The deaths…_

It took a frightening amount of effort to keep his expression empty of the tension welling up inside. Kami, but it had been coming in waves lately. Ever since Asuma's funeral. Ever since that reckless night with Genma. Ever since Kakashi realised there was nothing he could do to put a dampener on it.

_Nothing, hmn? Nothing left to lose. Nothing left to surrender…_

Ah, but wasn't that the crux? Wasn't that the very reason he'd cut and run from ANBU all those years ago? He'd never been able to live by those rules – shame that it always took a friend's death or a comrade's darkness to remind him why.

"You're relieved of the order to keep an eye on Hyūga Neji," Tsunade informed, pulling his gaze away from the window. "Although I still suspect you had ulterior motives, putting him forward to head this mission."

Recovering all the tools of his bullshitting trade, Kakashi tipped his head to a sheepish angle and manufactured a smile that barely crinkled the corner of his visible eye. "Best to let him test the frying pan before leaping into the fire, hmn?"

Tsunade pursed her lips, clicked crimson-manicured nails against her teacup in a meditative jingle. "Well, something's definitely cooking in Kusagakure. And it doesn't smell right. Not by a long shot." She frowned at a hairline fracture in her teacup and glanced up sharply. "Have the chimaeras in the 44th Training Grounds been contained?"

Kakashi nodded an affirmative. "Nara Shikaku ordered several to be quarantined for research purposes. Same goes for the hybrid plants. While I haven't spoken directly to Inoichi, I've heard the Yamanaka are handling the botanical part of this mess. Any remaining chimaeras were either destroyed or detained for Neji's training sessions."

"Good. The sooner we wrap this up with Kusagakure the sooner we can concentrate our efforts on eliminating the Akatsuki and restoring the Fire Temple." Tsunade slotted the maps into their respective carrier-cases and scowled at the growing stack of papers piled like a haphazard Jenga tower by the side of her desk. "That'll be all, Kakashi."

Feeling more exonerated than excused, Kakashi bowed his head, body twisting in the same motion to exit the office. The door clicked shut behind him, the latch's soft 'click' as hair-raising as the trigger of a landmine. He didn't hang around for the imagined detonation and hastened his steps along the broad curve of the corridor, glancing down at the small bloodstain blotting his pocket. Silver brows pulled together.

_And you put these in your _mouth, _Shiranui?_

Well, it's not as if Genma's masochistic tendencies had ever surprised him. Once upon a long lost time ago, he'd sought the Shiranui out specifically for his strange and unhealthy attachments.

_Addictions…_

Driven by the thought, Kakashi took the emergency exit along the hallway and hopped up onto the railing that snaked along the narrow stairwell. A quick glance skyward and he back-flipped several feet into the air, alighting in a neat crouch atop the large open roof of the Hokage Mansion, startling a flock of pigeons into flight.

Feathers sailed on the breeze, silver-gold in the sunlight.

Surveying the open area to assure he was alone, Kakashi leapt back a pace, pulled his bloody hand from his pocket, made five quick seals and smacked his palm to the warm concrete. "_Kuchiyose no Jutsu_!"

A spiral of black script.

A puff of chakra.

A pug.

Pakkun snorted and frowned up at Kakashi from beneath several rolls of furry wrinkles. When this elicited nothing but an arched brow from the copy-nin, Pakkun huffed, promptly sat – and licked his balls.

Kakashi sighed. "Lovely."

"That's all the love you'll get for summoning me on my day off."

"Why keep a dog and bark yourself?" Kakashi quipped, tilting his head in mock speculation.

"Why so much blood?"

Kakashi blinked. "What?"

The dog stood up, studied the bloody handprint he'd been sitting on and cocked his head up at Kakashi, employing that adorable head-tilt that'd melted mankind's heart since the dawn of domestication. At least, it would've been adorable, had the accompanying frown not rolled down over the pug's twitching nose like a thunderhead.

"Kakashi…" Pakkun grumbled, concern rolling somewhere beneath the growl.

Kakashi stiffened against the sound. It brought to mind the rumbling whines and whimpers that'd surrounded him the night he'd howled down the moon, lashing out at his ninken with all the ferocity of a feral wolf.

They'd been wary around him ever since.

Frowning softly, Kakashi reached out with his unbloodied hand and scratched Pakkun behind the ear with such unguarded affection it startled the dog into a little backward jiggle. Realising his slip, Kakashi pulled his hand back and yanked his defences up, sitting back on his haunches.

Pakkun made to come forward, but Kakashi's cool gaze stayed him.

The moment had passed.

The dog sat, head ducked, waiting with sudden obedience.

Kakashi reached into his flak jacket, plucked out a small fuchsia pill and placed it a twitch away from Pakkun's paws. Curious, the pug sniffed at it, tiny pink tongue darting out in a tentative lick – a second later the small head tucked back, dark eyes grave beneath the puckered frown.

"This is heavy stuff, Kakashi."

The copy-nin nodded slowly. "Find me the dealer."

* * *

_"You will find out where Dr Mushi has been and you will report back to us immediately. Do you understand?"_

_You say jump…I say…_

Nothing. He certainly never had to ask how high. He knew the sky was the limit. One of the many reasons he didn't like flying too close to the ground. Come to think of it, he could've done with a sweet chemical rush right about now. Grunting, Genma thumbed the small fuchsia pill in his pocket, spent another moment grinding steel and tasting metal.

_Get up and get on._

He got to it, pushing away from the window and the jarring _crack_ of the panel-track blinds. They swayed stiffly in the breeze, bars of sunlight cutting through the pale slats like torch beams, penetrating a large room cloaked in soft purple shadows.

Dr. Mushi's office.

Genma surveyed the familiar layout, moving at a half-crouch around the large oak table, his gloved fingers stroking over ornate corners before sliding beneath grooves in the wood, rooting out old electronic recording devices and planting new ones.

An honest day's work.

_What a fucking joke._

As his hands worked, his gaze took a different route, scanning the office in its shadowy repose. A dark lattice coffee-table occupied the central space, its oval face boxed in by two broad horseshoe armchairs. Genma always took the seat facing the door, figured it was best to be predictable. Also, he knew better than to select the low coffee-coloured couch. Genma's shoulders tightened on reflex, remembering the first time he'd sank down into that ugly overstuffed monstrosity, its plush cushy wadding closing in around him with all the reassurance of a straitjacket – or four-padded walls. When asked if he was comfortable he'd wanted to scream until all the fibres in his body came apart. Obviously hadn't done that because…

_"I've got nothing I want to say."_

_"And that, Genma, still says something."_

Immediately, he became aware of the anticipatory silence of the room, like there was a recorder still ticking away somewhere – other than the ones he'd planted, of course. Just old suspicions dying hard, even if he wasn't sat in the chair. Genma knew Mushi recorded their sessions, also knew the shrink kept those tapes stashed behind one of the three woodblock prints dominating the left side of the office.

_Not where I need to be._

He looked right. This side of the office, recently installed, housed a set of warm elm sliding panels, their smooth lacquered surfaces interlocked to disguise rows of filing cabinets built into the walls.

The elegant keyholes winked tauntingly at him.

_Great._

Genma looked at the antique clock mounted on the wall, rolled his senbon to the far corner of his mouth and estimated how many locks he could pick in the next five minutes. A second glance at the new fancy panels and he factored in the time it would take to work around any potential chakra seals.

_That's a bit much. Not everyone's as paranoid as you._

Ah. Paranoid. He remembered that word – or more accurately its clinical abbreviation – penned in capital letters and diagnostic code on his report.

_SHIRANUI GENMA: Axis II: 301.0 PPD. Paranoid personality disorder._

A textbook case given that he continued to display '_a pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others, such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent._'

Dr. Mushi called it being paranoid.

Genma called it being a ninja.

But then, the good doctor also believed Genma had a schizoid personality disorder. Comforting to know you're a certifiable head-case when your body's being cannibalised by an overstuffed couch and your brain is breakfast on a shiny surgical plate.

Genma grit his teeth.

_Quit wasting time._

He attached the last electronic bug, straightened up and made to round the desk. Something he'd long avoided looking at caught his attention, a glimmer of light out the corner of his eye. He paused, went rigid against the impulse, but turned back to look at it. The Laughing Buddha ornament, a permanent fixture to the left of Mushi's desk, smiled up at him, a golden ray bouncing off its shiny bronze belly. The reflected light struck Genma's eyes, chased a strobe flicker of memory across his mind.

"_Laughing Buddha, huh? The fuck's he so happy about?"_

"_Rub his belly."_

"_Pretty sure that counts as desecrating a statue, Asuma."_

"_Depends what you're rubbing it with."_

"_And you call yourself a Buddhist."_

"_On occasion. And that's Budai, not Buddha."_

"_Whatever you say."_

"_I say rub the belly. Kakashi did it."_

"_Did he use his hands?"_

"_You're passing up on good luck, Shiranui."_

"_Yeah? Pretty sure you said luck was a lady."_

"_On occasion. And sometimes she's a big bald guy with a shit-eating grin."_

A sobering sting as the senbon sliced into his gums; but the wound wasn't where he hurt. Wasn't where he bled.

_Fuck that._

Snarling, Genma slammed the painful memory back into its grave...all rusty nails and splintered wood. But burying the pain didn't stop him from seeking out more. As if of its own sadistic volition, his body moved. He reached across the desk, touched two fingers to the Laughing Buddha's big shiny belly. Felt nothing through the cold leather glove. No magical spark, no tiny zap of static. No sense at all of having connected to anything bigger…or anyone beyond.

_Pathetic. And you're still wasting time._

Sneering, he shoved his fingers off the statue, jolting it hard. Something rattled in the Buddha's broad hollow belly. Genma froze, prodded again. Another rattle. He picked up the statue and cocked his head to gaze up the big bronze ass_. _

Interesting choice of hidey-hole.

Didn't disturb him as much as the thought of shoving two fingers up there, which he proceeded to do after removing his glove. In one of the many masochistic corners of his mind he wondered how much cosmic luck this violation was going to cost him – didn't care too much for the odds weighing in his favour.

_Think you deserve any better?_

There it was, the crawling voice of shame; one of the indestructible cockroaches still skulking around in his dilapidated conscience. Genma crushed it like a bug and went back to business. Angling his wrist, he fished around the curve of the Budai's belly until his fingers swiped two jagged teeth dangling from a chain. A set of keys. He got an awkward grip, felt the faint resistance of the chain when he pulled.

_Magnetised on the inside, hn? The chain too. Clever._

But not much of a challenge.

He tugged the keys free and set the statue back in its place. Examining the two silver teeth, Genma considered the desk drawers. Figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. He spun the key-ring around his finger and tried the first key that smacked into his palm. The drawer's lock clicked; a clucking tongue in the silence.

He darted a glance at the door, listened out.

Futile effort really, given that the thick wooden door was preceded by another just like it. Soundproofing for privacy, Mushi had said. Genma hadn't commented, hadn't cared. Had only considered how it would work against him when he was planting bugs. Sure enough, he couldn't hear a damn thing this side of the door unless it was through the open window.

_Move fast._

He pulled the drawer open, surprised by its weight and depth. He didn't have to rummage. Dr Mushi's appointment book sat dead centre, its black leather cover polished by the thin stream of sunlight pouring over Genma's shoulder. He pulled his glove back on and took up the appointment book, wrist dipping at the weight. He thumbed aside the tab closure, flipped the cover open and stroked his fingers down the cobalt-blue suede lining. Expensive.

_Pain pays…_

Ibiki was in the wrong line of work.

Genma's lip twitched. He cradled the book's spine in his palm, used his other hand to skim chunks of week-to-view pages. Paper fluttered against his thumb until his gaze hit on the latest calendar; Mushi's morning appointments had been scratched off the previous and upcoming weeks. He hadn't filled in the slots with any other personal or professional activities. Just a series of blank spaces Genma was supposed to fill in for The Council.

_"You will find out where Dr Mushi has been and you will report back to us immediately. Do you understand?"_

Genma ticked the senbon from side-to-side, bronze eyes flickering. Only sure way to track Mushi was to tail him or tag him. The latter was preferable, which meant getting close enough to plant a bug. Genma checked for his next appointment with the doctor; found it penned in for a late afternoon session in two days' time.

_Damn, week's gone fast._

Too fast. Shit. Two days? He should've remembered that. Probably had it scrawled on one of the many little appointment cards scattered about his apartment. The secretary kept handing him new ones, stroking her fingers over his in a soft flutter every time he checked out.

_Time to do that now._

He glanced at the clock, frowned as he saw time racing towards the 8 o'clock mark. The secretary would be in soon and Genma still had breadcrumbs to sweep up in the subbasements. Amazing, how destroying all the paper trails was more of a mission than the original cover-up.

_"And just how many stories were there, Genma?" _Kakashi's voice crept in, burrowing into Genma's brain. "_Yours? Shikamaru's?...Naoki's?"_

Disgusted, Genma jerked his head and dropped the book back in the drawer with a _thunk_ that coughed up musty air and an old yellowed sticky note – more yellow than sticky. It sailed across the desk.

"Shit." Genma caught it, reached over to tuck it back – stopped halfway into the action, immobilised by the name scrawled across the small yellow square.

_NARA SHIKAMARU: Diagnostic Report._

For blank second, it didn't register.

And then shock froze the breath in Genma's lungs.

He braced one hand against the desk and held the little yellow note in the other, the soft _tick-tick-tick _of the antique clock drowned out by the _thud-thud-thud_ in his chest.

_NARA SHIKAMARU: Diagnostic Report._

Time snapped back.

Jolting hard, Genma smacked the notelet down, thrust his hands in the drawer and clawed through empty manila files and crisp blank sheets, his lips tight around the senbon, breath firing in a syncopated pant through his nose – _in-out, in-out_.

_Nothing_. _Nothing. NOTHING._

He slammed the drawer and shoved away from the desk, passing his hands over his clothed brow to lace his fingers behind his head, narrow eyes pressed shut. Confusion swarmed his brain, an aggravated hive.

_Stop. You're assuming. Don't assume. Never assume._

A slow indrawn breath and his eyes opened. He came forward again, gripped the sides of the desk, one hand at a time, leather gloves squeaking. He stared down at the note, stared so damned hard his vision doubled on the words _diagnostic report_.

_This can't be accurate._

There was no way Shikamaru was one of Mushi's patients. The Council – under the Sandaime's orders – had prohibited the psychiatrist from treating any Nara patients other than Shikaku. Wasn't that the very reason Genma had been planted as a spy two years ago? To make sure. To make _certain_.

_I have. I've had this bastard pinned._

That included Mushi's clients. Genma had reels of names and hundreds of recordings; hundreds and _hundreds_ of recordings…recordings that ran like a constant radio-feed in his apartment, droning on deep into the long and lonely hours where insomnia became a kind of wired insanity. Two years. Two years sitting with his heels kicked up on the rubble of his crumbling life, a bottle in one hand and a little pink pill in the other, tapping people's lives like some code operator in a number station – because that's all Mushi's patients were to Genma, numbers and codes and pieces of paper.

_It's not personal._

Only way he could do it, sitting there by the flicking lights of bulbs too burned out to function, reading names, writing numbers, listening to lines and lines of dialogue until he became numb to anything but the keywords…and not _once _had he detected them. No mention of Shikamaru or anything that went down in Kusagakure two years ago. Which made total sense…because Shikamaru had never received or required treatment after that incident. He hadn't needed it because…

_"He won't remember it all. Don't ask him about it...ever...and if he starts to remember..."_

_"You'll be there to fix it, now get up." _

_"Listen to me, Genma. You go to the people I told you to. He can't be allowed to remember. But you will. You have to. 'Cause you gotta remember your promise to me...and my promise to the Sandaime. Now swear it."_

Genma blinked back from the memory of those words, trying to forget the face of the man who'd spoken them and focus instead on the warning he'd failed to take to heart.

_Heart..._

His heart…that'd been the problem at the time, hadn't it? And two years on his head wasn't doing any better at keeping up with the lies, the loose ends…the twisted logistics that kept it all together.

_When did it come apart?_

Genma pinched the bridge of his nose until the pain pulsed behind his brow.

_What did I miss? And how the hell did I miss it?_

Well, between the drinking and the drugs, it wasn't hard to imagine that he'd fucked up at some point. Some vital point. Or maybe he'd become so blind to the truth that he'd failed to detect it altogether.

_So open your eyes and figure this out._

Cold numb detachment was what he needed. He was excellent at that. That was his forte. At least it was when he wasn't trying to get his next fix…just how many little pink pills did he have left, anyway?

_Focus._

His expression hardened, eyes sharpening on the yellow note. Discovering where Dr Mushi had been spending his mornings was secondary now to finding out whatever this insect did or didn't know about Nara Shikamaru. And even more pressing than that, was finding out what Shikamaru did or didn't know about his own past.

_Time to find out…_

Genma raised his head and looked across at the panelled cabinets where Mushi kept his patients' records under lock and Buddha-Belly Key. Where the crackling audio recordings had failed, the hardcopy reports might offer some insight. Or at least offer some direction with regards to how fast Genma needed to run to get ahead of the potential landslide.

_Move._

Time, as ever, moved faster.

Genma didn't have time to close distance.

Sure as clockwork, he heard the _rap-rap-rap _of heels outside, followed by a melody of chirpy female tones twittering through the open window as Mushi's secretary went about the lengthy purse-rummaging ritual of letting herself into the building.

The clock struck 8, its antique chime ringing like a miniature prayer gong.

Genma hissed, eyes flitting between the office door and the cabinets.

_No time. You can't afford to screw this up._

He'd have to come back.

Rearranging the drawer back into its former order, he locked it up and returned the keys to the Laughing Buddha's belly. A quick circle of the room, a last glance in the direction of the cabinets – and he was out the window and across the street before the secretary was through the door.

* * *

_Like a freakin' rabbit warren in here…_

Kiba scowled at the "YOU ARE HERE" sign plastered next to the fire escape. No clearer the second time around. He'd come a complete circle. Sighing, he gave up on instructions and followed his instincts. A quick sniff and he recaptured Ino's scent, faint and floral beneath the pervading stink of chemicals, plants, medicines and something toxic enough to make his head spin and his stomach roll.

_What the hell are they cooking in this place?_

He winced at the olfactory overload; felt it burn like hell had crawled up his nostrils, searching for a nosebleed. A kick in the balls might've been kinder.

_Or not._

Re-orienting himself, Kiba loped along the dove grey corridors of the botanical research facility, eyes on the pale vinyl flooring that streaked out ahead of him in a long worn strip. A couple of turns and a quick stop later, he came to a set of double doors crowned with the words BOTANICAL LABORATORY and a smaller plaque reading: _A WING: Department of Bryological and Lichenological_ _Studies. _

_Bryo-what?_

Kiba grunted and shouldered through the swinging doors, wincing at the pain. A small reception area greeted him. But nobody was home. The main desk stood vacant, the adjacent space occupied by long shelves and racks of botanical magazines.

_Fun stuff. _

No wonder the receptionist had bailed. Kiba looked right and then left along the two branching corridors, nostrils flaring, millions of scent receptors firing off, sending out signals that he interpreted in a heartbeat. He spun right, moving off along the hallway towards the laboratory door at the far end, following perfume swirls of hyacinth and lilies, humming a tune….

_There was a man who had a dog…_

He poked his head around the corner.

_And his name was…?_

"Bingo," Kiba breathed on a grin, bracing his shoulder against the doorjamb.

Oblivious to his presence, Ino stood leaning over one of the work benches, attention riveted on some bizarre contraption that looked about as user-friendly as one of Kankurō's puppets. Ino didn't seem deterred by the mechanics. In fact, she looked the professional part, kitted out in a stained lab-coat, complete with gloves and goggles. She'd even pulled her hair out of her face and secured it like some weird flower arrangement at the top of her head, wisps of flaxen hair shimmering as she moved, reminding Kiba of the pale silky thread grass he used to get lost in as a kid.

_Yeah, I got lost alright._

"_Go hide, Kiba-kun. I'll count to one hundred and then I'll come find you."_

Lying sonofabitch never had.

Kiba's jaw tightened on a snarl. He brushed off the memory like dirt, focused on Ino's gloved hands whisking across the work surface, handling apparatus with an ease and efficiency that both surprised and intimidated Kiba out of his initial plan to burst in and tease her.

He was working on Plan B when it happened…

Ino began to sing.

Shocked stupid, Kiba hung back, thumbs hooked into the waist of his slacks, his jaw hanging open a little. He didn't know the song. Something girly and silly, but Ino was swinging her hips and swaying her body with gusto, promenading up and down the work aisle with the uncoordinated but somehow sensual uninhibitedness of a woman dancing when she thought no one was watching – using a scalpel as a microphone.

_Oh man, where's that camera?_

It was a fleeting thought, gone before it could germinate. Nothing mocking or cruel took root in Kiba's brain...in fact, there was an utter lack of scheming altogether as he watched Ino perform to the empty room, tugging on the lapel of her lab coat with theatrical passion as she bowed backwards and belted out an intelligible line into a glass beaker, giggling at the impromptu acoustics.

Kiba didn't blink, didn't breathe, a baffled smile canting his lips.

To think, none of her moves were calculated to impress, seduce or draw attention, yet Kiba was more riveted than he'd been at Shikamaru's birthday party – and at that point Ino was using _him _as the dance floor. But there was something – _some feelin'_ - about the unguardedness of this moment that captivated him in a way her drunken flirting hadn't.

Ino wasn't posing, preening or being a spiteful little princess.

She was just playing…

Absorbed, Kiba leaned into the door, brows flying upward in amusement when Ino lifted a tray above her head and did a dainty little pirouette towards the opposite bench, still singing, only softer now, her voice as sweet as a dream.

But every spell must break.

Setting down the tray and reaching for a stack of empty vials, she caught Kiba's lounging figure out the corner of her eye and let out a startled yelp, one hand grasping the counter and the other pressed against her thundering heart.

_Nice!_

Kiba mentally fist-pumped, delighted at her horror.

"Oh my god…" Ino whispered, letting out a breath.

Kiba bobbed his brows, grinning. "Weak at the knees already, huh?"

Recovering fast, Ino straightened up and gathered her indignation into a vaporising glare that might've been scary were it not for the goggles.

_Hah. Cute._

Cute? Kiba gagged on the thought and made a face, tapping his temple to indicate the safety glasses. "Shino's shades are hotter. And that's sayin' a lot."

A mortified pause and Ino exploded. "Kiba, you jerk!" She snarled, ripping off the goggles so viciously her hair came down on one side in a tumble of blonde strands. She thrust a gloved finger at him. "What the _hell_ are you doing lurking in the shadows like that?"

Now, faced with a stupid question like that, which left Ino wide open for a heavy-fire commentary on her little dance performance, Kiba was armed to the teeth and ready to let loose. Only he didn't. The comments stuck like cannonballs in the back of his throat, locked and loaded but unable to launch.

_The fuck? _

It was the _perfect_ opportunity. Man, it had been handed to him on a rare silver platter like a prime cut of _kobe_ beef steak. He could _decimate _her with this shit. Hell, he might _never _get a chance like this again.

And yet…

"Well?" Ino demanded, blue eyes ferocious, blonde hair a wild briar-patch tangle to the side of her head. But even rattled and dethroned, she thrust her chin up to a queenly angle as if daring him to bring it on. All tough cookie in the face of her imminent humiliation.

And yet…

Kiba saw her clenched fist quivering at her side.

And just like that, he let it slide, one part of his psyche howling at him in outrage while the other just rolled over and played dead, not wanting to examine _why_ he'd given up on this golden, _golden_ chance to forever reign supreme over the Yamanaka princess.

Ino watched him, anticipating his attack at any second.

Animal-eyes flickered with amusement. "Got a sample of that root you wanted."

Ino gave a little jolt at the unexpected diversion, like he'd reached across and shoved her_. _She teetered, a bird on a very thin tripwire. When Kiba offered nothing else, she puffed up on the spot, all hot air and rising steam with absolutely no outlet.

_Ha. Guess that counts for something._

"Did ya hear me, twinkle toes?" Kiba said, unable to resist.

The playful jab slid like a needle into a balloon. Colour popped hot and pink across Ino's cheeks, a stream of pent-up air hissing through her nose. She scowled, snapping, "Well show it to me then."

Smiling, Kiba reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a large sandwich bag, displaying said root; a long ruddy worm-like thing with odd spindly shoots. It brought to mind a bloated centipede. "Can't believe I had to make nice with a flesh-eating plant. That thing smelled like ass."

"You would know," Ino shot back. "Isn't that how dogs make friends?"

Kiba flung the bag at her.

Ino caught it one-handed and mid-turn, balancing the tray of vials on her hip. She stuck her tongue out at Kiba's mocking whistle and examined the specimen, tossing her hair out of her face with a huff. "I'm surprised you even knew what to look for."

"Neji pulled the stick outta his ass and drew me a picture in the dirt."

Ino gave him the stink-eye.

Kiba tilted his head against the door and gave her a devastating grin.

The effects of said grin weren't quite what he was expecting. Rather than yell or roll her eyes, an odd tightness gripped Ino's expression and her body stiffened; she held herself like someone teetering at the edge of a natural reaction and a controlled response.

_Screw that. _

Kiba's irritation was instant.

His grin pulled into a teeth-grinding sneer. He'd had enough of this controlled bullshit from Neji earlier. If there was anyone he could count on – besides Naruto – for a good verbal rough and tumble, it was Ino. But before Kiba could knock her off kilter and back into the insults, her words shot out cool and clipped.

"I'm busy, Kiba."

The effectiveness of that statement didn't even penetrate, like tapping a bloodhound with a fly swatter. Kiba didn't budge. Ino didn't seem to breathe. She just stared quietly at him, her eyes cool. No hint of the blue fire he'd seen seconds before.

Uncomfortable, but damned if he'd show it, Kiba raised his brows and chuckled humourlessly, a quiet rumble in his throat. "What? No hiss and spit today?"

Ino raised her chin. "You're just not worth it, Kiba."

Ow. Now that hit. That hit hard. That hit dead-on-fucking-centre. Anger burned beneath the playful sparkle in Kiba's eyes, his drawl coming out hard and low, despite the intended lightness of his words. "Yeah. Not when you're sober anyway."

Heat flooded Ino's face, redder and brighter than the tattoo slashes on the Inuzuka's lean cheeks. But it knocked the ice from her eyes, blue flames rising up. He didn't get to enjoy the reaction. Bristling, Ino turned and set down the tray with enough force to rattle the vials.

Glass shivered.

She said nothing.

And the quiet ticking of a clock called out the long awkward seconds.

_Balls._

What a backfire. Kiba knew enough about women's silences to know that he should've stopped when he was all playful bark and no bite. He'd bit too deep with those words. Maybe drawn a bit of blood in the process.

_Baaaallls…_

He stroked his tongue across his teeth, caught the bitter aftertaste of his words and smacked his lips, passing a hand across his mouth.

_I ain't apologising._

No way. Choosing to bound over the tension rather than wrestle with it, Kiba shoved off the door and strolled into the laboratory with all the swaggering confidence of a wolf on his own turf. Couldn't have been further from the truth. Controlled environments like laboratories and classrooms were the _worst_ kind of cages. Funny. That might've explained a lot about his truant behaviour at the Academy – what was it Iruka-sensei had said? Something about Kiba being a kinaesthetic learner? Better with the hands-on stuff? His mother had taken the advice to heart and beat the shit out of him from then on out. Yeah, that was some hands-on learning, Inuzuka style. He stopped skipping classes. Well…stopped getting _caught _anyway.

A loud pop drew his attention.

Ino had begun yanking stoppers off the vials in sharp successive tugs.

Not fancying an elbow to the face, Kiba gave her a wide berth and sniffed at a shelf lined with plant specimens, jerking his head back at the poisonous scent of nightshade. "Your anti-venom worked, by the way."

Ino didn't look up.

Crouching down, Kiba shot her a quick sideways look from beneath his brows, pretending to examine the lower shelves. "Pretty cool stuff you cooked up. You do that in here?"

Ino said nothing.

Damn, she was really gonna make him work for it. Grunting, the dog-nin slapped his thighs and straightened up, hands sliding into his pockets. He examined the laboratory's layout and meandered his way along the rows of lab benches, taking the long winding route, letting the tension crank a few notches until he ended up on the opposite side of Ino's workspace.

She ignored him.

Smirking, Kiba pulled up a stool, let the legs drag in an obnoxious screech, all nails and chalkboard.

Ino grit her teeth.

Ah, instantaneous and gratifying. Just that small reaction was encouragement enough. The dog-nin plonked himself down on the stool, took up a vial and popped the stopper with his thumb, catching it in his palm before it could go bouncing off down the bench.

Ino glared at his hands, brow furrowed.

Raising his palms in surrender, Kiba set the vial down with exaggerated care before taking up another one just to repeat the process: _Pop_, catch. _Pop,_ catch. _Pop_, catch.

Huffing, Ino rolled her eyes.

Kiba smiled and chalked himself up a point on the mental score board.

Satisfied that he wasn't going to smash anything, Ino left him to it and went about examining the root sample under a long-necked magnifying glass that looked more like one of those goose-necked lamps than a lens.

The silence lost some of its chill.

Kiba absorbed himself in the vial-popping task for the mindless distraction it provided. Not like he had anything more entertaining to do. It was all about passing the time until he could bail Akamaru out of quarantine and burn a hole in Neji's wallet. Oh, and maybe get his shoulder looked at. He cocked his head at Ino, bouncing a rubber stopper in his palm. Too bad that asking her for help meant admitting that he was wrong and she was right about the stupid shoulder-harness thing. Was a fixed shoulder worth an earful of 'I told you so'?

_Heck no._

Finished with the vials, Kiba propped his elbows on the workbench and dangled a glass tube from his fingers, swinging it idly. "Your dad teach you this stuff?"

"Most of it," Ino said without looking up. She reached across for a set of pins and secured the root to a slide. "I taught myself a lot too."

Curious but not wanting to appear too interested, Kiba rocked the stool onto its back legs and peered down the glass tube at Ino, twirling the distorted image. He waited a beat before asking, "So why didn't you go into nerdy stuff instead?"

"And what?" Ino made a small precise incision in the root. "Give up on being a ninja?"

"Well yeah, if you wanted."

"I'd never want that. I'd go stir-crazy in a lab anyway."

"Hn. You seemed pretty happy."

"Happy?" Ino frowned in concentration, bending over to adjust the overhead lens and light. She took a swab of the dark sticky fluid that leaked from the bleeding root and set the sample in a small petri dish. "Happy," she repeated, sounding thoughtful.

"Yeah." Kiba angled his makeshift telescope at her butt. "Waggin' your tail kinda happy."

Straightening up, Ino scowled and swatted at him. She missed, but was satisfied to watch him wobble for balance. It failed to throw him off; he continued to gaze at her through the tube and said, "Admit it. You enjoy this science geek stuff."

Ino arched a delicate brow, fixing him with a look. "Like you'd survive in the field without it."

Kiba ducked his head and ceded the point. "Got no argument there."

That seemed to please her. Smiling, Ino propped a hip against the bench and snapped her gloves off, looking thoughtful. "I guess I enjoy it. I mean, I'm good at this stuff, right?"

To Kiba's ears, that sounded completely rhetorical, but the expectant sideways look that Ino shot him suggested otherwise. He did a double-take of her expression and hesitated. Was she being subtle? He didn't do subtle. Not well, anyway. Also, when the hell did Ino give a damn about his opinions anyway? Was she actually _asking_ for his opinion?

Lifting a brow, he lowered the tube a scant inch, met her gaze over the top of it. "You askin' me or tellin' me?"

"Well what do you think, idiot?"

He laughed. "See? That's a more direct way to ask."

Ino rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched in a begrudging smile. "Well whatever. So long as the anti-venom and poisons work. I was worried. The chimaeras are scary but these plants are all…" she wiggled her fingers mystically over the pinned root, which Kiba assumed was meant to illustrate the freak factor.

"Yeah," he grunted, rocking the stool back onto its three legs. "Kinda figured that out when it tried to chow down on my face all Venus flytrap."

"Obviously," Ino said, rolling up the sleeves of her lab-coat. "The hybrids are all derivatives of carnivorous plants, like the Dionaea Muscipula you mentioned." At his blank look she added, "A.k.a. the Venus flytrap."

"Huh." Disgruntled at the total dismissal of his near-death experience and Ino's sudden shift into geek-speak, Kiba propped his chin in his hand, scowling at the rows of vials. "Great. You sound like Shino with his insects." And then Kiba's eyes sparkled, a grin picking up the corner of his mouth. "Ha. Neji's gonna have a blast keepin' him from getting all depressed over the whole carnivorous-plant thing."

Ino winced in sympathy, sealing up the root sample and folding away the lens. "Poor Shino."

"Poor, _Shino_?" Kiba crabbed a hand over his face and twitched his fingers in imitation of creepy mandibles. "Did I mention that my face was two chomps away from being dinner? Shino's insects won't even classify as snacks for these things."

Instead of sympathy, Ino slid a large beaker towards him. Bright orange fluid, thick as churned honey, rolled around the glass in a sluggish wave. And then the scent struck Kiba's nose, burning like wasabi along his sinuses. Gagging, he sneezed violently into the crook of his arm and squinted at Ino through watery eyes.

"The hell is _that_?"

Ino smiled sweetly at him. "Pour it into the vials?"

"I'm not touchin' that."

"You will if you want to avoid being eaten alive by vampire fleas. You dilute it and—"

"I ain't drinking it either."

"Well you wouldn't anyway, idiot. It's topical."

Kiba grinned as if to say 'yeah, nice one'. He stopped smiling pretty fast when Ino returned his look with a frank stare. He stared back, shook his head. "I ain't putting this on my skin."

"It works like citronella on mosquitos."

"I don't care."

"And it plugs the pores so they don't—"

Kiba held up a hand to cut her off. "Shino is gonna tell me all about it in graphic detail. And I still won't care. I ain't using this."

Ino frowned at him. "You'll need it, Kiba."

"I'll take my chances with the bedbugs."

"Whatever. Just put it in the vials, will you?"

Grumbling, the dog-nin tipped the stool onto its back legs and stretched out his arms, maintaining a calculated distance between his nose and the contents of the beaker. Ino smirked, watching him work like a puppet on strings, all stiff-limbed and wooden expression.

_Man this reeks…_

Yeah, he was totally holding his breath. Pretty sure he was crying. This stuff was giving off vapours like a fucking onion. No _way _was it going on his skin.

He didn't notice Ino watching him until she stopped packing things away, turned towards him and finally deigned to ask, "Is it really _that_ bad?"

Kiba narrowed his streaming eyes at her, about as much as he could manage without scrunching his nose and triggering a sneeze that'd dent the back of his head. "Like I told Neji a while back, the nose upgrade is gonna take some getting used to."

He hadn't said it to impress or interest her, but for some reason Ino abandoned all the botanical paraphernalia and hopped up onto a stool opposite him. He heard her feet tapping the bench on the other side, legs swinging like a kid. She propped her chin in her palm and eyed him dubiously for a moment, then began to smile.

Kiba frowned at the scheming look, twisting a stopper into place. "What?"

"Ever think about using your nose for non-ninja purposes?"

"There ain't nothing else worth my time."

"But there are lots of things worth your talent," Ino pointed out, that too-sweet smile blossoming across her face.

Kiba's eyebrow twitched. A phony compliment? Dead giveaway even if her smile _was _too sweet to be anything but suspicious. He decided to play along, just for the sake of catching her out.

"Okay," he challenged. "Name _one_."

Ino waved a hand as if summoning ideas out of the ether. "Oh, I don't know." She pretended to hunt around and then snapped her fingers. "Perfumery!"

Kiba stared blankly. Then realised she was serious. Laughter erupted from the back of his throat, followed by an explosive sneeze. "Ugh…"

When his vision cleared and his nose stopped stinging, he discovered Ino glaring at him. And then, quick as it took him to blink, her petulant expression transitioned from pissed off princess into indifferent ice queen.

Kiba stiffened against the look.

It was the same controlled and superior manner she'd taken with him about twenty minutes back. He couldn't remember what'd triggered it then, only remembered the feeling it'd left him with.

Anger.

He frowned uncertainly at her. "What?" he coughed out, setting down the beaker he'd almost dropped. "You actually _serious_?"

"Forget it," Ino said coolly, her voice gaining a frost that didn't match the emotion flickering in her crystal blue eyes. "Dismiss a perfectly brilliant idea," she snatched the beaker from him and filled the remaining vials in seconds, making an unspoken mockery of his attempts to help her out. "I don't even know why I bothered to suggest it. It's not as if I'd want someone like _you_ working for me anyway."

It wasn't even the words that did it. It was the way she looked at him when she said it; like he was shit on her shoe. And suddenly Kiba was a five-year-old kid lost in a maze of silky thread grass…and the anger pounced, a crouching wolf inside him.

"Working _for _you?" Kiba snarled, coming up off his stool so suddenly it toppled with a deafening clatter that had Ino stiffening in her seat. Kiba leaned across the workbench, teeth lengthening subconsciously, animal-irises glowing gold. "Working _with _you is painful enough. Hell, I'd feel _sorry_ for Shikamaru and Chōji if I didn't think they got a good laugh out of how _desperate_ you are to be noticed."

She slapped him.

The force of her smack turned his head aside, burned like a blow from the flat end of a red hot skillet. Ears ringing and cheek aflame, Kiba's fingers tightened on the countertop, elongated claws carving grooves into the pale grey Formica.

He turned his head to face her.

The feral snarl caught behind his teeth.

Ino's eyes were wide and shining. The ice had thawed, silver tears glistening along her lash-lines. Cheeks flushed and throat mottled, she heaved a shaking breath but didn't back down, her body still half-turned from the momentum of her swing. She'd thrown more than her weight behind that blow. Kiba felt it in the sting and tingle across his face. Some fire, some fight…

_Some feelin'…_

His eyes dropped to her wet shivering lips.

Hunger sprung up, swallowing the anger. Kiba took the beast by the throat and leaned back by degrees, eyes still on her mouth. He reached up, rubbed sharp-nailed fingers over his burning cheek, voice rough as an animal's growl, almost unrecognisable in his semi-feral state. "Next time put your claws into it."

Ino swallowed hard and forced a bitter smile, voice shivering out. "Like I'd break a nail over you."

Kiba smirked at her cattish hiss and worked his jaw from side to side, fingers still gliding over his cheek. The animal glow dimmed to a simmer in his eyes; claws retracting, fangs receding. But the anger was still there, a hot ball in his gut. He backed off, hands raised in a parody of surrender, a tiny bead of blood shining on his bottom lip where lengthened fangs had split flesh.

"Always a pleasure, Princess," he drawled, turning his back on those flashing blue eyes and the wild and uncomfortable feelings they stirred up inside him.

_Great…_

He licked the blood from his lip, his empty laugh echoing down the empty hallway.

_This is turning into one BITCH of a day…_

* * *

"Sonofa_bitch_…" Shikamaru hissed, his fingers locked tight and blanched white as he held the shadow possession steady. Sweat slicked his brow, trickled down his temple. "Shit. I won't be able to hold this guy for long, Chōji!" he shouted above the cacophony of caged monsters. "Get ready!"

"Got it!"

Blowing out his cheeks, Shikamaru nodded to his teammate and began dragging his feet back one torturous step at a time, hauling the huge deer-headed chimaera forward and closer to the edge of the segmented enclosure. The perimeter fence loomed over them and all around them, its strong grey rails and reinforced steel mesh casting a network of shadows over the scene. In the other pens, chimaeras of grotesque design bayed and squawked, howled and whinnied, roared and screeched.

Fear pebbled Shikamaru's skin…instinctive and inescapable…

_I've got this. It's okay._

His breathing came heavier, eyes narrowed in focus. He pulled the deer-headed beast another three steps, then flicked his fingers so fast the shadow possession was still holding by the time the shadow stitching _jutsu_ took over, thick black tendrils roping the animal's legs and prying apart its jaws. A series of bone-like spikes shot out from its spine and neck, a useless attempt at defence. It bellowed, the stench of an ammonia-like odour reeking from its salivary glands.

"Now, Chōji!"

Chōji moved on command, one super-sized hand getting a solid grip on the beast's bottom jaw. His other hand, gloved and unchanged, moved to gather the thick spittle and froth foaming at the chimaera's mouth. He scooped the mess into a container, sealed it, dropped it and nudged it with his foot into the waiting shadow-hand that snaked across the straw and sawdust.

"Eyes!" Shikamaru called, sinking to one knee, teeth grit as he manipulated both the shadows restraining the chimaera and the shadows operating like a surgical team around Chōji, handing him equipment in a coordinated effort.

Quite an operation they had going on here. They'd been at it for most of the day. This was the fifteenth beast they'd taken gland extracts and excretions from.

_Should've used Ino to do some of the immobilising…_

He'd sure as hell need one of her chakra pills after this. He could feel the chakra drain pulling at him, dulling his reflexes, weakening his limbs. All this accompanied by a dizzying bout of double-vision threatening to confuse his senses, making him see shadows and shapes where there were none. He could've sworn there was a constant presence hovering in his periphery, creeping closer, growing larger. Maybe it was unconsciousness.

_Shit. This'll be the last one…I'm running on empty…_

He blinked hard, tightened his grip as Chōji took swabs from the chimaera's preorbital glands, trying to avoid stabbing the beast in its rolling yellow eyes. Shikamaru did a quick count of the areas they'd already hit; tarsal glands, interdigital glands and forehead glands. A done deal. His old man had taught him well.

_We're done here._

"Let's wrap this up!" Shikamaru called out, jerking his head towards the exit gate.

Chōji gathered up the samples, stashed them in the sterile medical bag and jogged towards the gate, yanking it open. He turned back, held it open and waited for Shikamaru.

Locked in a stare-down with the beast, Shikamaru prepared for the 'run-screaming-for-the-hills' manoeuvre that'd always served him well. Bar the screaming part. He didn't think he had enough air to manage that. Breathless pants wheezed out of him and the shadows trembled, began to loosen.

_One…two…_

He never made it to three.

The shadows snapped and the beast charged. Shikamaru sprang like a startled buck, muscles moving in burning concert as he zigzagged across the straw, throwing the beast's charge into a confused head-tossing weave, the scything antlers slicing up hay kicked up by Shikamaru's heels.

"Shikamaru!"

The shadow-nin felt the wind of a passing blow, the sudden catch and snag of horns tearing into his long-sleeved charcoal-grey crewneck. Cursing, he pitched forward into a roll, heard the rip of fabric followed by a hot sting across his skin – like carpet burn.

_There goes my top…_

Ino was going to kill him. Well, if the big foaming-at-the-mouth beastie didn't trample his skull. Driving forwards, he continued into the roll, diving clean out of the pen just as Chōji swung the gate shut. The beast crashed into the perimeter fencing, the ugly spikes along its spine quivering and bristling.

Shikamaru scrambled back crab-like, panting hard.

Chōji crouched beside him, touched him on his bare shoulderblade and checked his back, found no injury but asked anyway, "You okay?"

Nodding wordlessly, Shikamaru eyed the ragged strips of his twice-worn top dangling from the chimaera's antlers like some skinned animal. Rheumy eyes rolling in its huge head, the cervid stomped its hooves and began galloping horse-like around the perimeter fencing, displaying its shredded prize to the rest of the monsters pacing in their cages.

_Man, these things have got some crazy stamina…_

He was about ready to pass out.

He jumped when Chōji pressed a large red chakra pill into his shaking hand, adrenalin wearing off, leaving him shaky. "Thanks," he rasped.

Chōji plonked down beside him, opened a packet of potato chips.

They sat in silence, refuelling.

Dropping back onto an elbow, Shikamaru's breathing eased, his pulse a soft throb. As his brain took immediate inventory of what they'd gathered, he didn't notice that his shaking had stopped even before he bit into the food pill. He'd barely finished chewing his second bite before strength came in a pins-and-needles rush, tingling warmly in his _tenketsu_, raising the gooseflesh on his arms. He shivered, frowned at the food pill; figured Ino must've upgraded them. At the thought of Ino his appetite halved and the rest of the pill went down as smooth as a chunk of rock. He swallowed audibly.

"What's up?" Chōji asked without looking.

Shikamaru sat up, grunted and reached a hand back over his shoulder, grazing long fingers over the shredded fabric haloing his nape like a collar. "Shit."

Chōji kept his eyes on the prancing chimaera and nodded sagely. "Ino's gonna kill you."

"I know."

"Slowly."

"I know."

"Like, painfully slow. I'm gonna need popcorn."

Shikamaru jabbed the grinning Akimichi with his elbow and rocked onto his feet, dusting himself off. Futile effort, what with the back ripped off his top and the front hanging forwards like some weird cowl. He fingered the soft fabric. Hadn't realised or appreciated until this moment just how comfortable it felt against his skin. He might actually have grown attached to it, if half of it wasn't already attached to the foaming-at-the-mouth beast. The shadow-nin stared through the fence, looking a little forlorn.

"You could've been so happy together," Chōji sighed wistfully.

Shikamaru looked down at him. "That could've been the skin off my back."

"Nah, you're saving that for Ino." Chōji raked his fingers like a cat paw but spared Shikamaru the imitation of a hiss. "Guess we'll see if Kiba's right about her having claws."

A breathy chuckle and Shikamaru reached for the medical backpack. He checked and secured the contents, shrugging the straps on. The rough canvas scratched at his back but he figured it beat walking around topless. Leaving Chōji to eat in the small annexe, the shadow-nin did a quick perimeter check, brisk-walking the circumference of the large enclosure to double-check the gates, moving routinely until a warbled yelp stopped him.

_The hell?_

He paused at the closest pen, watched a strange dog-type creature circling in its cage. It had the compact build and sloping back of a hyena coupled with the glossy black mane and the black striations of a zebra. But it was the huge front forelegs that drew Shikamaru's eye. Powerful, meaty limbs that resembled the arms of a sloth, the giant curved claws hooked like deadly meat hooks, forcing it to walk on its knuckles, almost ape-like. A horror nature never intended.

Equal parts fascinated and disgusted, Shikamaru moved closer.

The creature stopped pacing, sniffed along the fencing, hooked those enormous claws into the steel mesh and attempted to climb, its short hind legs scrambling in confusion, unable to support its deformed body, mixed genetics screaming out commands from three different species.

_Damn…what kind of sick mind created these things?_

And why had that same sick mind – or minds – smuggled these things into Konoha? For what purpose? It's not like they'd have gotten the chance to do any serious damage. All fresh battle stock and soldier pills were vetted by Jōnin, which meant this hadn't been an attempt by their unknown enemy to wipe out unsuspecting Genin during the next Chūnin exam. Also, the chimaeras had been heavily secured in their crates – and would've stayed that way if the idiots who mixed up the pills hadn't assumed it was the usual batch of standard-issue beasties.

_Unless they were in on the job…_

They weren't. Ibiki had interrogated those responsible for screening the beasts and divvying up the soldier pills; turned out to be a genuine error on account of laziness and complacency. Also turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

_If those pills hadn't got mixed up, we'd never have known the damage they could do._

A vision of a crazed Akamaru and a pissed off Inuzuka Kiba came to mind. Shikamaru frowned and leaned into the fence, watching the chimaera struggle. With this kind of warped display of power and scientific genius, Shikamaru had a gut-feeling it was all about ego. Showing who had the bigger and better toys. Even the method of delivery smacked of arrogance, hijacking cargo from right under two villages' noses, raising suspicion at both ends. Clever, mockingly so. One could even guess that the chimaeras had been sent in parody of a gift. Wrapped, ready and full of surprises.

_Hn. But you didn't leave a card, did you?_

Not even a fingerprint. Sure, the shock factor of these things was enough to set the higher-ups on edge, but why make such a statement without taking credit? It didn't make sense. And that missing piece of the puzzle threatened Shikamaru's theory about someone's ego being the driving factor.

_Kusagakure have gotta know more about this than they're letting on._

Guess he'd find out soon enough.

Across the short distance, the chimaera stopped attempting to climb. Having sensed his stare, it turned towards him, its massive jaws pulled into an ugly smile, razor fangs chattering excitedly before it burst into a garbled animal laugh that sounded half hyena-giggle and half growl.

Shikamaru checked the padlock on the gate.

Safe and secure. Well, about as safe and secure as could be on short notice and limited options. These enclosures weren't built to accommodate _these _kinds of chakra-enhanced specimens, but they'd held up pretty good so far.

_Yeah, until they REALLY start trying to break out._

Shikamaru guessed that the only reason the chimaeras hadn't tried harder for freedom was because they were accustomed to cages; although some of them, namely the dino-birds, seemed to be missing the liberty they'd tasted in the Forest of Death.

_Good thing they won't be around long enough to cause trouble._

The dino-birds had already started to look for ways out, consistently checking for weaknesses in the fencing and gaps in the mesh. Smart bastards. And damn if that wasn't scary. Seeing that glimmer of intelligence in those cold beady eyes disturbed Shikamaru far worse than the amalgamated mess of scales, feathers, fangs and claws.

_Ugh._

He backed away from the cackling hyena-thing and set about completing his circuit, double bolting the pens with the dino-birds, just to be sure.

"All secure," he called out, coming full circle and jogging the final few yards like he actually had somewhere to be. He didn't. Unlike Chōji.

"Ah crap."

He'd all but forgotten that he'd 'borrowed' Chōji for this little side-op. Harassed by the thought of landing his friend in shit, Shikamaru moved with uncharacteristic urgency to pack up the rest of their supplies, crossing back and forth in quick darts.

Chōji didn't seem all that concerned, just sat there watching him.

"Clock's ticking, buddy," Shikamaru called, shoving samples into another canvas backpack, balancing it on his knee. "What time you meeting Tenten?"

Chōji didn't move. "Four."

More like four thirty at this rate. Maybe even five if Chōji didn't start hauling ass. Shikamaru gave up trying to use his thigh as a table and crouched to zip up the backpack. "You're gonna be late," he reiterated, giving the door a pointed look. "If you run you might make it there before Tenten. I'll get this stuff to the labs."

No reply. He stopped fiddling with the bag, felt Chōji's eyes on him and met the Akimichi's baffled look with an arched brow. "You hear me?" he pressed. "You're gonna be—"

"You okay?" Chōji asked.

Shikamaru cocked his head, nonplussed. "Hah?"

Chōji observed him for a few quiet seconds. "You were totally wiped. You usually need like a half hour after a chakra pill before you get going again. I'm surprised you're even up and moving."

Struck by the accuracy of that statement, Shikamaru went instantly still. He recovered in the same heartbeat, offering a crooked smile to keep from frowning. "Yeah well, at least _one_ of us is up and moving, right? Let's go."

He pushed to his feet, yanking his awareness out of his brain and onto his body, checking himself ruthlessly. No dizziness, no tiredness, no aches or pains. Nothing to suggest he'd just spent four hours expending energy and mass amounts of chakra.

_That's crazy…I was about ready to pass out just ten minutes ago. Wasn't I?_

Wasn't he? He remembered feeling exhausted. Remembered eating the pill…had he been feeling re-energised before or after he'd finished it? He couldn't remember. Didn't think it really mattered. Did it?

_Does it?_

Chōji called his name softly.

With no explanation to offer, Shikamaru traded in confusion for avoidance. He shot Chōji another wan smile. "Either Ino upgraded those pills or I must wanna get outta here faster than I thought."

"Shikamaru…"

"Really, _you _should be the one running," Shikamaru went on, his voice carrying over his shoulder as he moved on ahead. "Not sure whether Tenten has Ino-claws or not, but you're sure gonna find out if you don't get moving."

That seemed to do the trick.

Chōji jumped up, sent the crisp packet sailing.

They exited the compound, bestial roars and screams receding like rumbles of distant thunder. Shikamaru kept his eyes on the path ahead to keep from casting glances back at the freak show they'd left behind. He couldn't help but feel like he'd just closed the curtain on the chimaeras' fate. The next step after collecting samples was extermination.

_Straight out slaughter._

Pity pulled at him, a small childish hand. He shook it off, irritated. He wasn't a kid anymore. He knew how dangerous pity could be. Pitying those chimaeras didn't make them any less likely to want to rip his throat out or trample his skull into the dirt.

But still…

_But nothing, idiot. Wanna go another round and see how far pity gets you?_

Frowning, Shikamaru lengthened his strides, turned his face up into the late afternoon sunshine and let the warmth melt the tension from his brow. He heard Chōji keeping pace beside him, rustling around for another packet.

Shikamaru smiled, shaking his head. "Still here? Brave or stupid."

"Hungry," Chōji corrected, chowing down on a protein bar. "You want one?"

Shikamaru looked across out the corner of his eye, thought it best to give his buddy a little more incentive to get moving. "You're not gonna make it back for that dinner, you know."

Spurred, Chōji's nostrils flared and his heels kicked off the dirt with a speed and strength that propelled him halfway down the path. Shikamaru stopped walking, if only to watch the spectacle. A backward wave and three giant leaps later, Chōji was beyond the treeline and out of sight.

Shikamaru stared after him, his smile slipping away.

He waited a good few seconds before he rolled his shoulders against the weight of the canvas backpack, testing more for sore muscles than sore skin.

_Nothing…_

Normally, after consecutive use of the shadow possession _jutsu,_ he'd be sore in the shoulders and arms, stiff in his back and weak in his thighs – especially when dragging enemies around the way he'd been dragging those chimaeras. The _jutsu's _intermittent strain of holding and releasing, manipulating and immobilising created all kinds of muscular tensions.

_Ino must have upgraded those pills…_

He tossed the other backpack he was carrying between each hand, gripping the strap and dangling it from his fingers. Not even a twinge of discomfort. Even after all those hand signs.

_No other explanation…unless I'm actually catching up to Chōji and Naruto on the chakra front._

He snorted at the likelihood of _that _ever happening. He was brain, not brawn. He didn't have the physical capacity to store chakra the way Naruto did or the innate ability to metabolise it the way Chōji could.

_Maybe I'm just having a good day…_

Following that thought, a loud obnoxious squawk.

_Or not._

Sighing, Shikamaru slanted his head to keep from turning around, gazing up at the canopy out the corner of his eye. "Don't you migrate for the winter?"

From somewhere above the peregrine falcon let out a soft _kee_.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, but his smile was soft. "Stupid bird."

The resident Nara pest flapped with delight and dipped into a high speed dive, raking its talons through Shikamaru's spiky ponytail in ritual abuse. Shikamaru didn't even attempt to swat at it. Knew he'd miss. He was fast, but the bird was faster. He watched the peregrine sail down the path ahead, attempting to initiate a long-standing game of 'run and get dive-bombed'.

"Not today," Shikamaru called after it, fanning his fingers through his abused hair.

He still had topographical maps, lab results and intelligence reports to go through.

_All in the next three hours…_

That is, if he wanted to make this dinner on time – which meant he might actually have to start running.

_What a damn drag._

On the brighter and more tactical side, he'd have a legitimate excuse to avoid eating at home and not some lame cop-out story that would've fooled anyone else – just not his father.

_I can't keep avoiding him. _

That, if nothing else, would start raising red flags faster than Nara eyebrows. A good thing this past week had seen his old man holed up in the Nara labs from dusk until dawn. By the time Shikaku rolled in the door, Shikamaru had rolled out the window, spirited away by duty calls and pig summons.

Pure coincide their paths hadn't crossed.

_Yeah, cause I don't believe in luck._

Shikamaru stood for a little while longer, not wanting to move out of the dappled patch of sunlight. Trees and bushes shivered around him, the late autumn breeze rolling red and yellow leaves across his path. Shadows danced to every rustle and whisper, a moving carpet that stretched as delicate as black lace beneath his feet. It brought to mind the _jutsu_ his father used to trap and draw enemies simultaneously.

_Kuro Higanbana…_

The Black Spider Lily shadow technique. He sure could've used that today. He'd tried perfecting the technique on his own but always ended up expending too much chakra. Either he was screwing up the seals or he still hadn't built up the stamina to alter his chakra density and manipulate the shadows fast enough.

Shikaku had watched him fail again and again. He'd said nothing, offered nothing.

_Don't ask. Don't get._

Shikamaru snorted at the 'parent-child' tactic. Totally effortless on Shikaku's part. And wasn't that just like his dad? Making a move without lifting a finger. Now they were stuck in a stalemate that only Shikamaru could break. Too bad Shikaku had the patience to wait him out. Always all those steps ahead of his son. Maybe that was why…

_You've never chased me down…you've never…_

The shadows at his feet shivered, but the leaves were still.

There was no wind.

Stillness and silence all around, until a shrill '_kee' _broke the spell.

Shikamaru jolted, yanked back from his mental detour. He blinked up into the orange-gold sky, watched the falcon's silhouette circling overhead and became aware of the subtle change in light, the lengthening shadows. How long had he been standing there?

_Long enough._

Discarding whatever thoughts had distracted him – he couldn't actually remember what he'd been brooding about.

_Ah yeah, dinner…_

And all the paper pushing he needed to get done before that. He sighed, picked up his feet and followed the bird down the path, his brain racing ahead as usual, prioritising the most important tasks.

_Work. Eat. Sleep. Wake. Mission._

He didn't need to set the alarm; hadn't needed to set it at all this past week.

_Great. Here we go again, Hyūga…and I thought I was through with this shit…_

Apparently this shit wasn't through with him. No doubt about it though. He'd be up long before dawn, operating like clockwork on someone else's time.

_4 AM._

* * *

"You didn't have to walk me, you know."

"Far be it from me to impugn on your ability to defend yourself, Tenten."

"Aw. And here I hoped we'd get a chance to settle our dispute over the superiority of your empty-handed techniques versus my armed-and-dangerous style."

Neji glanced sidelong at his old teammate. "Agree to disagree, as always."

Tenten laughed, arms hooked over the bō-staff she carried lengthwise across her shoulders. Shooting Neji a playful look, she twirled into her next step, a nimble double spin that forced Neji to angle his jaw away from the protruding ends of the bō and jump high to avoid being cracked across the back of his knees as she crouched low, rising up again like a dancer to glide back into an easy stroll beside him.

A brief silence, amusement rich in it.

Tenten tittered softly. "I loved doing that when I had you guys on either side of me. It was like a coordinated dance. Gai-sensei thought we planned it."

Reserving comment and a smile, Neji reached up a little stiffly to adjust the pack slung across his shoulder. He bit back a wince at the pain that flared in his back and shook his head at Tenten's antics. He'd forgotten this side of her, had taken it for granted in the past. He'd always been so serious, so withdrawn.

_So cold…_

She'd emulated his remoteness when they were younger, thinking it cool and mature rather than controlled and arrogant. Fortunately, Lee and Gai-sensei, for all their non-infectious enthusiasm, had exhausted her into surrendering the act. Good. In giving up on Neji's approach, she'd gained so much more. She'd developed friendships with Sakura, Ino and Hinata, gaining a vital support network of young women who understood her in ways that Neji and Lee never would. She'd also become a far more spirited fighter.

_She's come far. We all have._

Only his teammates' paths had guided them closer to the other Chūnin while Neji's long and lonely road threatened to take him far beyond those circles of friendship.

_Those circles of feeling…_

"It hasn't been the same without you, Neji."

Such a soft admission, yet Neji's heart hardened. He kept his gaze fixed ahead. "Of course. Your coordinated dance moves require two educated victims."

Tenten didn't laugh, but she rewarded his rare show of humour with a smile. "I'm serious. After you made Jōnin—"

"There," Neji interrupted, thrusting his chin towards the complex that came into view beyond the trees. "We made good time."

The Akimichi Armoury, a squat and solid-looking depot, its concrete roof flat as a smashed helmet, corrugated walls washed red by rust and rain. In the sunset's dying glow, it brought to mind a vision of blood on steel.

"Perfect," Tenten whispered, sounding reverent. "I've always wanted to see this place."

Neji said nothing, moved on ahead.

They approached the giant iron doors. Dark stripes of corrosion dribbled blood-like down the tarnished metal. Neji exchanged a glance with Tenten and nodded. They moved in unison to draw back the heavy slabs. Stubborn hinges groaned and orange flakes of oxidised metal peppered down. Neji gritted his teeth, felt the pain in his arms and thighs ache and burn like a fever buried in his body. Gods, but ANBU training had completely redefined the meaning of 'no pain, no gain' – and for someone who'd had Gai-sensei as their mentor, that was saying a hell of a lot.

Neji dug in his heels and pulled harder.

The doors gave another inhuman groan.

Somewhere above, a couple of pigeons hooted from an upper storey window.

Tenten frowned, glancing up. "Pigeons roosting in an armoury? Either this place hasn't seen action in a while or we're years too early."

Not one for the time-warp theory, Neji sighed and followed her gaze. No good judging the activity within by the presence of birds too bold to be spooked or too stupid to know any better. Neji listened out, wasn't really sure what he expected to hear; the thunder of a smithy's hammer? The roar of furnace fire and the clang of metal?

"Maybe we should wait," Tenten advised, still hanging onto the door.

Neji glanced skyward, watched the orange underbellies of the clouds burn dark and sooty. He turned back to the doors, got a solid grip and braced his feet. "They're unlocked. Let's consider that an invitation," he urged, redoubling his efforts.

Bemused, Tenten shook her head at his insistence but followed suit, clucking her tongue in mock admonishment. "Breaking and entering? Not like you."

_I beg to differ…_

Neji's lips twisted in a wry smile at the memory of crashing through two panes of reinforced glass – and a very expensive brand of hand-painted agarwood – the night of Shikamaru's birthday. Ah yes. Now _that_ was a Breaking and Entering act worthy of repute. Conducted in a state of irrefutable stupidity and executed under the influence of a brain-numbing impulse – and occasional tactic – that Shikamaru had come to call Neji's _'leap and bound' _manoeuvre.

"_Looking before you leap takes the fun out of it. Am I right?"_

Neji squeezed his eyes shut, crushing the sound of Shikamaru's voice and all the thoughts and feelings he still hadn't confronted since the last time he'd seen the shadow-nin.

_Don't._

His chest tightened, an old familiar pain twinging behind his ribs. Snarling, he focused on the pain radiating through the rest of his body – physical, tangible, somehow more controllable – and channelled his frustration into his fingers, gnarling them tighter around the door.

With a final heave, the doors yawned wide.

Tenten staggered back a pace, dusting off her palms. "Could've used Chōji for that. Think he's inside already?"

Neji squeezed a throbbing arm and hummed distractedly, his gaze cutting across to the perimeter fencing at the other end of the compound where the gabled roof of another building poked out above the treeline. He assumed that was where the Akimichi soldier pills were manufactured and stored. Attached to that thought was the memory of a familiar white ninken turned rust-red and feral.

_Hopefully the Nara will have analysed the properties of those faulty pills…_

While Akamaru had recovered from the effects of those pills, Neji knew that Kiba hadn't. The dog-nin's anger burned like a fever behind his animal-eyes; an anger that only close-quarter combat could cure.

_All the more reason to make sure we're armoured, if needs be._

Hence the Akimichi Armoury.

Neji turned to address Tenten only to discover she'd ventured on ahead into the building. Following behind, he hauled one of the doors shut, left the other open, casting a segment of dying light across the concrete floor. Temptation called, all but invited him to sit down in that puddle of light and let it melt away the pain.

_Ridiculous._

Neji stepped deeper into the gloom, body limned in an orange glow, his silhouette sharp and intrusive. The creak and drip of the old building echoed hollowly and the scent of weapon oil, steel and musty leather hung heavy as the shadows, blankets of darkness covering the far corners of the armoury like black canvases across unfinished works of art.

A startled gasp.

Neji whipped around. "Tenten?"

His voice boomed, sonorous and low, a deep rumble in the belly of the building. He cursed the acoustics and moved away from the doors, eyes adjusting fast. Clusters of low-hanging bulbs concentrated their flickering lights on several workbenches and armour racks, most occupying stark and sectioned areas, all divided by sliding panels. It allowed for convenient rearrangement and quick division of space – similar to _fusuma_ panels in the home.

Another hitched breath, a hushed cry. "Neji!"

Gauging the direction of her voice, Neji closed distance in one leonine bound, planting a palm on a workbench to glide over two hazardous surfaces without touching down. He landed in a rising crouch, coming up sharply around a corner.

What he found halted him in his tracks.

He jerked to a stop, but momentum swung his hair across his shoulder along with the full weight of his knapsack. It slammed into his bruised chest, knocked a startled _oomph_ out of him and dropped unceremoniously into the crook of his arm, jerking him forwards and down. He hung awkwardly for a moment, wincing.

Not his most graceful entrance.

Tenten didn't laugh. That might've been kinder than an awkward silence. Straightening up by degrees, Neji chanced a look from beneath his bangs and felt some of the tension – and humiliation – go out of his body.

Tenten hadn't even noticed him.

Oblivious to his presence, she knelt on a low bench, her fingers drifting in a mesmerised stroke across an array of melee weaponry laid out across the work surface. With infinite care, she caressed a bludgeoning-type instrument shaped like a scorpion-tail, stroking the huge tear-shaped telson and the lethal stinger with the tip of her index finger.

"They fashioned the stinger-cat's tail into a battle mace…" she whispered, soft as a prayer. "That's…_brilliant_."

Neji watched her for baffled moment, felt like he'd just walked in on something inappropriate. She was eyeing that thing the way Lee eyed Gai-sensei's gym equipment.

He cleared his throat.

Startled, Tenten looked up, cheeks flushed and eyes twinkling like a besotted child. "Can I have one?"

Neji's eyebrow ticked. He shrugged the knapsack back into place. Before he could suggest they look for Chōji, Tenten had moved on to the next contraption on display, patting her hands and bouncing on the balls of her feet like a child spoiled for choice.

Neji allowed a small smile to slip through. He couldn't begrudge her this small indulgence. This perusal of all things lethal classified as window shopping for the weapons specialist, which was probably about as girly as she allowed herself to get. And even then – a _weapons _store?

A sibilant hiss split the silence.

Neji stiffened at the sound, felt it slither across his nerves, dangerous and chilling. He met Tenten's gaze across the weapon's table. They waited, both alert, staring sightlessly at each other, ears straining.

Again it came, rising and falling like a serpent's breath.

Tenten's hand strayed to the weapons pouch strapped at her hip. Neji raised a palm. She paused, kept her gaze on him, waited for instruction. Neji closed his eyes, touched two fingers to his lips, miming silence and forming a seal in the same gesture.

_Byakugan!_

Chakra flared at the base of his skull, flooded the occipital region and pooled behind his eyes, tightening the veins and arteries at his temples.

His eyes flickered open, opal spheres marked by the barest trace of a pupil.

Submerged in the monochrome hues of his dōjutsu, Neji expanded his awareness to encompass the lower storey, listening out until the wet hiss fell beneath the dry scrape of scales on metal.

_There._

White-eyes rolled in their sockets, locating a large restricted section at the back of the armoury. Neji zoomed closer; brought into focus an inverted image of steel mesh fencing, the diamond-shaped apertures revealing the striated body of a lizard-like chimaera pacing up and down in its makeshift prison.

_A live one? In the armoury?_

Neji frowned, deactivated his dōjutsu. Tenten read his expression, reached for her bō-staff only to pause and redirect. She picked up the scorpion-tailed mace, smiling.

Neji stared back at her, pokerfaced. "No," he mouthed.

Undeterred, Tenten squared her stance, braced the club across her shoulder and planted her free hand at her hip, brows arched in challenge. She made no move to put the weapon down, looked ready to swing at him if he suggested that she part with it.

_Typical._

Neji shook his head but backed off, retracing his steps to move out into the aisle that ran between the separate work stations. He took point and Tenten shadowed him, silently switching her newfound toy between each hand, testing weight and calculating momentum.

Another wet hiss sounded.

Neji paused, lifted a hand and curved his fingers outward to direct Tenten's attention, changing their path to approach the caged area from a peripheral angle, rather than advance dead centre.

Gods, it was a hideous thing.

Neji placed its height at around 7 feet. The long serpentine neck weaved in a cobra-like dance and a large ruff of skin, frilly and speckled with iridescent spots, flapped like a lace collar about its head and throat. Bipedal, the creature appeared to be a cross between a snake, lizard and a bird. While it lacked the feathered appendages and crocodile-snout of the lizard-bird chimaera that'd attacked Shikamaru a week ago, it presented similar reptilian and avian mannerisms, all quick-fire jerks and twitches – save the neck, which swayed with a grace and sinuousness that matched the long rattling tail.

Neji backed away. "Strange," he whispered, eyeing the worn scales. They didn't seem as impenetrable as the carapaces of the other chimaeras. Upon closer inspection it appeared that this creature had flaked off a lot of its protective skin by rubbing up against the steel mesh.

Tenten peered over his shoulder. "I don't remember seeing that one in the clearing."

"No," Neji agreed. "Perhaps they only had one to spare for research purposes."

"In an _armoury_?"

Neji hummed, frowning. He glanced at her. "Do you see anything useful insofar as weaponry?"

"First thing I looked for." Tenten tipped her chin towards the creature's muscular torso where the reptilian forearms were tucked close to the body, its small claws dangling limply. "I mean, it's scary looking, but check out the claws. They're nowhere near as long or powerful as some of the other chimaeras. The tail and neck are too mobile to be of any real use. That cartilage will crack easy as a twig."

_Then why is it in here? And where is Chōji?_

A rapid sniffing and the huge flat head swerved towards them, that pronounced hiss accompanied by the feathering of a serpent tongue. It poked through the holes in the mesh, tickling the air in front of Neji's face.

A sickly sweet breath, souring fast, rancid as vomit.

Neji jerked back, stepped away from the fencing. The chimaera's bright yellow eyes followed his movements, head snaking back and forth. The tail rattled softly, but it made no attack, body slithering up against the mesh fence, shaking the steel.

The padlock glinted.

Neji relaxed his guard, shoulders drawing down.

Following his lead, Tenten gave the fencing a wide berth and scrunched her nose as she passed the hissing beast. "He needs a bath. Or a breath mint."

"Both," a male voice agreed from somewhere above, the warmth in his deep voice rolling down the creaking staircase, stealing over the initial chill that'd gripped the younger ninja.

Recognising the tone, Neji's expression thawed and he turned in the direction of the stairway, gaze drifting up at the sound of the descending tread; weighted and steady, amplified by the clunk and grind of metal plates. As the unseen figure neared the foot of the stars, he flipped a switch, causing the bulbs clustered at the trellis to buzz and flicker to life; their dim glow arced off a broad dome of polished armour, strapped to an ample belly and ringed with a corded belt of thick twisted rope. The diffused light cast the man's plump features in stark relief; a crest of fiery hair, a broad flat nose, round jovial cheeks marked by purple stripes and dimpled in a smile that radiated the same warmth and amusement as his small squinting eyes.

Akimichi Chōza.

Neji brought his hands to his sides, dipped his head and inclined his torso to the appropriate level of respect, not a degree above or below what was expected. "Senpai."

Stumbling into the formality, Tenten blinked wide, attempted to hide the scorpion-club behind her back and paused half-way into the appropriate bow, her eyes fixing on the iridescent armoured plates draped over Chōza's arm. "No way," she whispered. "You turned the carapaces into lamellar-style armour?"

Chōza looked to her appraisingly and patted the laced rows of plating. "Lamellar, scale and laminar," he said, striding over to lay the impressive cuirass on an unoccupied workbench. "I was going to test this out with Chōji, but seeing as you're here first." He beckoned her with a wave.

Tenten beamed and all but bounded over, thrusting the scorpion-club into Neji's unsuspecting chest. He staggered back, one arm wrapped around the weapon, frowning at her. "Tenten."

"What brings you here, young Hyūga?" Chōza interrupted affably, walking over to a large rack draped with various pieces of armour. He selected a slim plated bodice fashioned from the same obsidian scales, handing it to Tenten.

"I came to take inventory of our stock," Neji answered, setting the stinger-tail down and out of sight. "Needed an update on the armour situation."

Smiling, Chōza spread his hands, a gesture that encompassed several mannequins and wooden body forms all kitted out in various styles of armour. "Prototypes," he said. "But you'll have your update by the end of the day."

"No doubt," Neji said, watching Tenten tug on the cuirass and lace up the sides with quick tugs and twists, marvelling at the glistening lamellae, a set of scales that'd once belonged to a beast as gruesome and unnerving as the yellow-eyed reptile observing them from behind the steel mesh.

Chōza was talking, his back turned.

Neji didn't hear, continued to watch the chimaera, holding its stare. The beast crouched lower, began to weave its slender neck in a slow hypnotic dance, yellow eyes emitting a peculiar glow that held the Hyūga spellbound.

_Is it…speaking?_

Neji cocked his head, inched closer to the cage, fascinated, appalled, but certain there was something there; some communication, some language, some meaning, some message in the movements, in the primal twist and turn.

The beast hissed, willed him closer to share its secrets.

Its tail rattled softly…softly…

Chōza stepped between them, broke the spell. "He's a charmer, that one."

Neji blinked fast, felt like he'd been caressed by a _genjutsu_. "What?"

"Don't get too close," Chōza advised, moving back over to Tenten. "One of our people learned the hard way."

Avoiding those yellow eyes, Neji observed the reptile's stippled underbelly, orange freckles and specks of red. "If it's so dangerous then why are you keeping it here and not at the Nara facility?"

"Research."

Neji pressed his lips at the evasive response but didn't push further, letting his gaze drift across the caged area and beyond the chimaera's body to settle on a splattering of large and frothy pockmarks oozing down the steel walls.

_What the hell?_

Frowning, he tilted his head, pale eyes narrowing in on the wet fizz and pop of bubbles blistering the metal, eating into it like acid.

_Kami…what is –?_

Movement out the corner of his eye – something silent and slithering low to the ground, thin, black and quick as a viper. Neji whipped his head around, saw grey concrete and empty space.

And then he heard the padlock click.

He looked up into burning yellow eyes – could've sworn they smiled.

The gate exploded outwards.

"Neji!" Tenten screamed.

Neji flung himself back, heard a shattering hiss and building rattle, like rain off an old tin roof. Saw delicate frills of lacy flesh fan out across the beast's throat in a shivering crest and watched the long emerald neck pull back into a poised 's', jaws unhinging, fangs unfolding, black foam dripping.

Neji's eyes widened in comprehension.

And then that crested neck snapped forward, jaws wide, black foam spraying.

"_KAITEN!"_

Blue-white chakra ripped the air with the force of a cyclone, ballooning outwards, washing the armoury in blinding light. Neji heard the wet smack of spit, the fizzle and pop of saliva spinning off his chakra shield, backfiring on the beast and spattering the concrete, the walls, the…

_Tenten! Chōza!_

The chimaera screeched its pain.

_Now!_

Closing the _kaiten's _devastating spin, Neji guided the final revolution into a round-house kick, snapping the beast's jaws shut with a solid crack to the scaled chin. The chimaera reeled, massive tail whipping back and forth to catch its balance.

Neji almost lost his balance completely, a ragged gasp catching behind his teeth.

_Damn. I need to replenish my chakra._

A good thing he hadn't expended himself completely last night during training. The ANBU drill had been relentless. They'd all but pushed him to his limit.

_But not quite._

The _kaiten _had bought him precious seconds.

Seconds that he threw away the moment he looked over his shoulder, searched for Tenten…saw her safe and unharmed, crouched behind Chōza's supersized and heavily armoured forearm. Globs of spittle fizzed and popped, eating into the metal. Chōza cursed, ripped off the armguard before the acid could eat through clothing and into skin.

Neji's eyes rounded.

_What the hell is in that venom?_

He whipped back and froze, breath caught in his throat.

Time was up.

The reptilian face hovered inches from his own. Pungent breath fired out, fluttering his bangs, hot and tingling against his skin. But it wasn't the lengthening fangs or ropes of poisonous spit that held him paralysed. It was those scintillating yellow irises, the thin crescent pupil, the fused lids and the clear shining membrane that blinked horizontally across the glowing eyes.

Neji blinked slowly, heavily…

_Move…MOVE!_

He didn't. Couldn't remember why he should. Saw no need. Saw only two yellow orbs as bright as sunlight, warm with promise, seeking rest in his cloud-like eyes.

_Rest…it doesn't come like this…_

But it had. Ugly and unexpected.

_And yet…_

Neji stared death square in the face and felt no fear…felt no sadness…felt only bereft…empty of something vital…hollowed out by the realisation that…

"_I'm not afraid. Not of death…"_

_"Yeah. And knowing that about you still scares the hell out of me, Neji."_

Memories of a voice like smoke, a tongue like fire and a kiss that scorched his senses, burning straight through paralysed brain and clouded mind.

"_Breathe me…"_

White eyes flashed wide, breaking the spell.

_MOVE!_

The chimaera moved faster.

Its neck snapped back and whipped forwards, throat contracting, venom glistening. And just as it prepared to spit, a black rope looped around its neck, tightened like a lasso and jerked hard, whipping the beast's head away, re-directing the boiling glob of spit onto an armoured mannequin with a wet crack.

Neji stared in shock, not comprehending.

And then he saw the rope move – no, _slither –_ silent and snake-like, up along the creature's neck, crushing its leathery crest and muzzling the snapping jaws in a black shadow-hand.

"Getting sloppy, Chōza," came a low husky voice, raw as rust yet smooth as smoke and oh so dangerously soft.

Neji went rigid.

Chōza chuckled, a deep belly rumble. "Getting slow, Shikaku."

"Timing is everything."

And gods but the Nara had cut it close. Right down to the last hair-raising second.

_And no doubt for my benefit…_Neji thought derisively, backing away from the thrashing chimaera as the Nara commandeered the darkness, dragged the monster to its knees and back into its cage. Once he'd wrestled the beast into submission, a thin tendril split from the shadow hand, wormed it merry way along the steel mesh to slide the bolt and secure the padlock.

Neji kept his back to the stairway, breathing slow, breathing deep.

Tenten came to his side. She didn't touch him. Smart move. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he said, clipped and quiet.

Neji didn't hear Shikaku descend the steps, but he felt the Nara's chakra withdrawing, watched it flood back across the floor in a black whisper, caressing his ankles in a chilling drift, mockingly soft. A parody of reassurance. As if he hadn't been watching the entire time. As if he hadn't waited until the last second. As if he hadn't unleashed that bloodthirsty monster in the first place!

_Calm down._

Neji's breath seethed between his teeth, one silent hiss to expel the rage. And in one breath it was gone, extinguished. No burn, just the bitterness of ash…and the embers of emotions Ibiki kept warning him to crush and Shikaku kept baiting him to unleash.

_They're playing me like a damned yo-yo…_

Did he really expect or deserve any less?

A prickling sensation raised the hairs at his nape.

Neji turned his head, spied the elder Nara's sharp wiry outline braced against the stairwell, arms folded and ankles crossed, sooty lashes cast low over smouldering eyes.

But it wasn't amusement burning there.

No condescending smirk, no superior tilt to head or jaw. Not even the trademark Nara eyebrow. To Neji's shock, Shikaku's face remained disturbingly blank and empty of expression…but for the strange and unreadable look in his eyes.

Startled, Neji lowered his gaze to cover his unease and dipped into a quick and stilted bow, speaking quietly. "Thank you, Senpai."

Shikaku said nothing, but his eyes narrowed fractionally.

A wall of tension towered between them, cemented by Shikaku's silence, climbing higher with every passing second until Tenten's excited gasp punched straight through it, shattering the awkwardness and redirecting attention onto the toppled mannequin.

"The armour," she whispered, helping Chōza to straighten the fallen cuirass. "It's—"

"Completely unscathed," Chōza announced. He clapped the mannequin's gleaming shoulder guard as one would a trusted comrade, rattling the armoured scales. "Just as you suspected, Shikaku."

Tenten blinked, looked to Shikaku. "Suspected?"

The elder Nara kept his gaze on Neji for another weighted pause, blinked a slow lazy blink and finally looked over at the armour, directing his words to Tenten. "Some of the chimaeras possess chakra-infused carapaces. These shells or scales are invulnerable to the chakra-infused spit of their aggressors. The acid eats through almost anything else."

"Almost…" Neji echoed, watching globs of spit glide harmlessly off the fused scales. His jaw tightened. "How did you know I could repel it?"

"I didn't," the Nara drawled.

Neji cut him a sharp look, blunted by rules of respect and rank and a hundred other reasons that failed to explain or excuse just what the hell Shikaku was trying to do. Hurt him? Humble him? Humiliate him? Hate him? All of the above? And just what the _hell _was standing in those shadowed eyes?

Neji couldn't hold the stare, transferred his gaze back onto the cuirass. "You didn't know I could deflect it. But you suspected," the Hyūga reasoned, trying to rationalise what Shikaku refused to justify.

"Yes," Chōza spoke up, having remained silent throughout their exchange, watching Shikaku from beneath heavy brows. When he turned to Neji, the heaviness lifted and his eyes were warm and smiling. "Chakra-infused venom requires condensed chakra to repel it. Other than having infused armour, you'd need a sustainable shield of concentrated chakra in constant flow. No breaks in the defence. Such as—"

"The _kaiten_," Neji supplied, unable to dull the edge in his voice. His next question cut out sharp as a blade, his gaze back on Shikaku. "And if I hadn't used it?"

Shikaku gave no answer, but one corner of his lip curved in the barest trace of a smile.

It chilled Neji to the bone.

* * *

"Interesting turnout," Shikamaru drawled, eyeing the circle of empty cushions. Well, all empty save for one.

Naruto scowled, slid his finger over the final folds of his origami airplane and sent the Yakiniku Q takeaway menu sailing towards Shikamaru's head. The shadow-nin ducked, felt the paper skitter over the spiky strands of his ponytail and crash land onto someone's plate in the booth behind.

"Hey!" A customer thrust her head around the wall and peered over Shikamaru's shoulder, glaring at the pale-faced Uzumaki. "You almost poked my mother's eye out, you moron!"

Naruto cringed, laughed nervously. "Sorry."

"You will be," the woman growled, moving to round the shadow-nin.

Sighing, Shikamaru reached into his pocket with two slender fingers, plucked out four Yakiniku Q discount vouchers and held them over his shoulder right under the woman's nose. "Recompense for my idiot friend."

Snorting, the woman eyed the vouchers, weighing up the offer. Shikamaru estimated three more seconds. It only took two. She snatched the vouchers and returned to her meal.

_Headache avoided._

Naruto didn't seem all that impressed at the negotiation, turning wounded eyes up towards the shadow-nin. "Buy one get one free?" He croaked, sounding pained. "Seriously?"

Shikamaru arched a brow. "That's what you get."

"I didn't get anything!"

"Exactly. You remember the last thing you aimed at my head? No?" Shikamaru balled a fist to illustrate, snorting at Naruto's wide-eyed look. "Yeah. And you missed. Hit Hibari instead. Remember how well that turned out for you?"

Naruto huffed, drew back with his arms folded. "You always duck."

"I'm smart like that."

Blue eyes sparkled but the high-beam grin dimmed to a weak twitch of lips. Naruto sighed, stared miserably at the cold brazier in the centre of the low table and spread his arms to indicate the vacant seats. "This is lame."

Shikamaru shrugged, leaning into the fusuma wall that divided the booths. "Maybe we got the wrong place."

Naruto shook his head, paused, then looked sideways at Shikamaru like there was some conspiracy in the works. "Where're Chōji and Ino?"

Good question, at least where Ino was concerned.

The shadow-nin opened his mouth to answer, but shouting drew his attention to the entrance of the restaurant. A trio of genin stumbled in through the flapping noren curtains, one boy bouncing ahead of the others, black curls falling into his bright green eyes. Their sensei, a tall bearded man with a ruby winking in his earlobe, followed close behind. As the noise-level piqued, he dropped a hand on Curly-Kid's head, said something that made the boy flush and quieten down, eyes on his shoes. An abashed silence – until the Jōnin's hand squeezed gently, ruffling the dark curls. Laughter followed, fond and forgiving.

Shikamaru's throat tightened and he glanced away, his voice hoarse. "If I had to guess, I'd say Chōji ended up doing overtime at the armoury with Tenten. As for Ino…" He lifted a shoulder, couldn't say for sure where Ino might've been. She hadn't been in the labs when he'd stopped by, which could've placed her anywhere. "What about Sakura and the others?"

Naruto harrumphed and slouched back, eyes following the meat-laden trays being carried back and forth across the restaurant. "Neji bailed. Sakura said she needed to re-stock the med-kits. Kiba was actin' all psycho over something quarantine did to Akamaru and Sai got called away by some creepy crawly ANBU-looking dude who made Shino go off all depressed and moody. Funny, cause they kinda looked the same too, you know?"

Only one word of that update registered as important enough and interesting enough to address – and even then, Shikamaru fought to keep the sneer from his lips and the scorn from his voice.

"ANBU, huh?" he muttered, not willing to hand over his brain to _that_ troublesome puzzle without certifiable proof that it was worth his time. He shot Naruto a sceptical look out the corner of his eye. "You sure about that?"

Naruto wasn't listening, seemed more intent on concentrating the full force of his kicked-puppy look onto the adjacent side of the restaurant where the genin team and their sensei sat huddled around their sizzling table, the air about them redolent with the thick greasy smell of roasted beef tongue and crackling pork belly.

The waitress brought another tray.

Devastated, Naruto whined a high note. "Dammit. I'd thought at least _some_ of the gang would'a put aside their crap and showed up."

Looking around drily, Shikamaru raised a hand to volunteer his presence.

That sarcastic and solitary gesture only served to deflate the Uzumaki further. Clutching his arms around his grumbling stomach, Naruto wilted like a starved sunflower, yellow spikes flopping forward as he dropped his head with an audible 'thud' atop the cold and barren table-top, rattling the lonely tongs and untouched chopsticks.

_Man, what a kid…_

Shikamaru might've been annoyed or maybe even amused, if he didn't instinctively know that Naruto's disappointment had less to do with his empty stomach and more to do with the empty seats.

_Damn._

Sighing, Shikamaru reached into his back pocket. A soft 'tap' and he slid two vouchers across the table, drumming his fingers to get Naruto's attention. The spiky head remained slumped.

_Troublesome_.

Frowning, he jabbed Naruto's head with two stiff fingers, prodding a muted 'ow' out of the sulking Jinchūriki before Naruto turned a whiskered cheek against the table-top and spied the coupons. Blue eyes pinched in momentary confusion before flying wide. In the same breath it took for Shikamaru to shoot back from the table, Naruto sprang up with an audible pop of knees and crack of muscle, fist-pumping the air in triumph.

"YES!" he roared.

A startled hush descended on the restaurant.

Without a word, Shikamaru turned on his heel, head ducked under the staring eyes of the disgruntled owner and the baffled customers. He was already halfway out the door by the time Naruto caught up, slinging one arm around the shadow-nin's neck and raising the other with a delighted hoot, _Ichiraku Ramen_ vouchers gripped tight in his hand, flapping gold and red in the cool evening breeze.

* * *

_"Kami._ What the hell were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?" Chōza asked.

Standing by the upper storey window, hip propped against the sill, Shikaku glided the back of his crooked knuckle along the carrier-pigeon's chest, smoothing out the old ruffled feathers. The pigeons hadn't spooked. But then, Shikaku hadn't suspected they would. They'd grown accustomed to the noise in the armoury, grown accustomed to the habits and demands of the ninja that they lived to serve.

_Or serve…just to live_…

Shikaku frowned. He'd forgotten to replenish the bird feed today. No matter. This bird wouldn't need it anymore.

"Shikaku."

Shikaku felt Chōza's gaze urging him to respond, but rather than rush his business or turn to reply, he continued on at the same casual pace, taking his time to secure a miniature scroll to the bird's leg. The pigeon cooed at the gentleness of his touch, at total ease with these hands that could kill as fast as they could caress.

"One more time, old friend," Shikaku murmured. He turned at the waist, leaned sideways out the window and held his arm aloft, his voice low and soothing. "One more time. Then you're free."

A soft hoot and the bird lifted off into the dark velvet skies, sending up a handful of twirling plumes in its race to obey. Shikaku watched the feathers drift, a see-sawing descent that drew his gaze down to the young white-robed shinobi exiting the armoury.

Hyūga Neji.

"I had my back turned and my armour unstrapped when you made that move," Chōza said. "Neji could've been blinded. Disfigured. Worse."

"Much worse," Shikaku agreed, watching Neji move with the stubborn confident strides of a man in total control of himself despite his pain.

_So like Hizashi…_

Yes. So very in control of himself, but not in control of his direction, his _destiny_. A destiny not yet determined, simply hanging by threads. Threads which made Neji nothing more than a marionette doll in the hands of superiors that knew how to pull his strings and make him dance.

"Why did you do it, Shikaku?"

Shikaku dropped his shoulder against the window frame, let out a long breath through his nose. "Do you think Hizashi would've reconsidered, if given the chance that his son has now?"

"Shikaku," The gravity of Chōza's voice settled with the gentle pressure of the Akimichi's hand upon Shikaku's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "What you did? That Hyūga boy could've been seriously hurt."

"You underestimate this one," Shikaku said, turning to dislodge the touch, but smiling to show he appreciated the sentiment. And then the light left his eyes. "And he's not a boy. None of them are. They're not children anymore. They stopped being children a long time ago."

Chōza drew his head back, searched Shikaku's face in dim glow. "You said the same thing to Inoichi when they came back from that mission."

That mission. The one that'd sent two Akatsuki monsters to their graves. Over and done so fast, with Asuma barely two days dead in the ground.

_So fast…always, so fast…_

Shikaku's lidded gaze strayed over Chōza's shoulder then drifted back. "You're right. I said it then. And I say the same thing now. They're not kids anymore."

Chōza frowned. "Has something happened between you and Shikamaru?"

Shikaku's expression arched, a look of amused curiosity to disguise the emotion that threatened to bleed into his eyes – an ugly extension of the scars that streaked across his face. "Between me and my son? No. But between you and Inoichi, I'm starting to wonder how _I _got saddled with the shrink."

While Chōza normally appreciated the wisdom of a bad joke saving him from a dangerous moment, the Akimichi gave no sign of appreciating it now. He gazed with affection at Shikaku. And then his words, so soft, hit like a fist. "You're my brother, Shikaku. My family. You and Inoichi, both." And then even softer, "Shikamaru and Ino, _both_. Did you forget that?"

_Forget…_

And for all his bitter experience and for all his many, many years of playing the game, Shikaku could make no move and manufacture no expression to conceal the pain that phased behind his eyes, rolling deep in the shadows that lived there.

"Forget?" he uttered, too calm, too quiet.

Face pinched, Chōza stepped forward.

Shikaku stepped back, angled his head in warning. But while his body sought shadow, his scars caught the light, glinting silver in the dying gloom, speaking of terrors his tongue had long forgotten how to tell.

"Shikak—"

"Remind me," Shikaku husked, lost in a game no longer familiar, using the only two words he remembered how to play. "Remind me."

A soft intake of breath as sadness glittered in Chōza's eyes. "We wouldn't let you forget, Shikaku. We..." he trailed off, brows pincing tight before he shook his head, adding softly, "We wouldn't let you forget _that_."

_No. Not that..._

The thickness of Shikaku's silence was consumed by the shadows that moved to engulf him, swallowing up the emptiness of the space he'd abandoned and the words he'd left behind. _"Never that."_

* * *

There was blood on the moon, its yellowed surface tinctured red.

_A Hunter's Moon._

Neji walked another staggering pace, paused and looked up into the pockmarked face; saw the incandescent light, the craters and the shadows. His breath rattled out, mist and vapour through his lips. He swayed, paused at one of the ancient _sugi _trees close to the Hyūga compound, crouched low beneath its giant shadow and spat blood onto the roots rising up from the soil.

_Pushed…too hard…tonight…_

But he'd held it together long enough to walk away, straight-faced and steady on his feet. And now he could barely stand. Ibiki was driving him into the unforgiving ground – and he hadn't even hinted at Neji moving beyond the preliminary stages yet. All this training could come to nothing. Well, nothing more than a honing exercise, equipping him with skills, strength and stamina he'd never get to use – at least not in the way he wanted, needed…which amounted to wasted time and crushed dreams.

It was the _not knowing _that bothered Neji more than the brutality of the training. He'd expected this much. Felt a kind of masochistic thrill at pushing past his limits.

But it was the _waiting_…the _wondering_…

He coughed and red spit flecked the tree.

_To hell with it. Let them run me into the ground. But I'll be damned if they bury me before I'm free…_

Conviction lent him strength. Bracing his shoulder against the trunk, he gazed up at that ruined moon and swallowed thickly, the taste of iron rich in his mouth.

_Breathe._

He sipped at the sweet cedar air, let the tension leave him in long smoky wreathes, calm and easy, steady and slow, on and on until the pain receded to a dull throb.

_Now. Move._

Easier said. No chance of using the Byakugan to scout out a safe route to his room. He didn't have the chakra to spare. Safest plan was to circumvent the verandas and inner courtyards, which left the roof as the only viable option.

_Wonderful…infiltrating my own home…_

At least that wouldn't be classed as breaking and entering.

_Or would it?_

He smirked drily at the thought, dragged his lean blood-smeared cheek against the coarse ruddy bark and panted hard. Chakra pills. He needed them fast.

_But first…_

Glancing around, Neji tucked himself deeper into the shadows and reached up to dip his fingers into the low neck of his stained and muddied robe, following the seam down to the fastener. He popped the button, stroked callused fingers across his torso, along the unseen _tenketsu _lines, pausing at a thin ridge of scar tissue, pale and almost faded. Another two stripes lashed across his chest. He had no idea where or how he had gotten the injury. Knew only that he'd discovered the wounds the morning he'd woken up alone in that that inn…that bed…

_That night…_

Such a confused jumble of memories and imaginings, faces and rooms, words and actions. Some of it real, some of it hallucination, but all of it chaos and a mess in his head but for one moment of blinding clarity.

That _kiss_.

Heat prowled through him, primal and dark, wild beneath a Hunter's bloody moon.

_Damn._

Snarling, Neji cracked his skull back against the tree, focused on the pain and yanked his thoughts back to the present. He bypassed those mysterious scars, let his fingers drag back onto the leylines of his chakra, following them across until he located the appropriate point.

_There._

Just the one. He knew better than to cluster them. Had learned the hard way.

_Do it now._

One deep breath, a tiny spark of blue-white light – and he burst the chakra block, teeth grit hard and eyes squeezed shut.

_Kami! I'd forgotten the pain…_

To think that once he'd lived with such blocks long enough to create embolisms in his lungs. Long enough to lose a control he'd never really had to begin with.

_I won't make that mistake again._

A dizzying and nauseating heaviness pulled through him, followed by a roaring in his ears as his blood pressure raised then regulated. He mentally checked himself, braced his palms against the tree and rose carefully, uncoiling his spine one vertebrae at a time, lifting his head last.

The world stopped spinning, the air no longer burned his lungs.

He felt the trickle of reserved chakra run like lifeblood through his veins, rejuvenating muscles and restoring strength. Enough strength at least to carry him across the compound, silent and unseen, bare feet finding traction on the smoky grey roof tiles, his path lit below by the diffused lantern light; strings of dull orbs burning in the courtyards and along the roofed corridors branching out between the various quarters.

Neji found the aperture to his room, swung in through the open window.

He landed in a crouch, one knee touching down. Remained unmoving for uncounted seconds, listening out for any disturbance.

_None._

He let out the breath he'd been holding.

Rising to his feet, he staggered sideways, caught himself one-handed against the _fusuma_ wall, groping along for the handle that slid the panel aside. He reached into the compartment, pulled out a black-lacquered box, popped the lid and thumbed three concentrated chakra pills from the stash. He knocked them back without chewing, swallowed dry and winced, turning to search for water.

He froze mid-step, very muscle coiled.

Stillness gripped him, the dangerous kind. Not borne of fear, but borne of fury. It settled across his body, cold as frost, leaving his face as pale and hard as the bird-faced ANBU mask nestled on his futon.

_Unbelievable…_

Chilling, to know they'd been here. Not just here in the domain of the all-seeing eyes but _here _specifically_. _In this pathetic spit of space he'd tried to make his haven. A home. A place to heal after nights of torture drills, mind trials and…

A note rested beside the mask.

The ice in Neji's eyes, the cold fury of indignation, cracked. Confusion pulled his brows together and he moved over to the bed. He transferred his stare onto the mask; whole and unworn, a far cry from the broken mask that Shikaku had taunted him with months ago in the Hyūga _dōjō. _He glanced at the note.

A crisp white sheet, folded in half. One word penned across the front.

_SHIRATAKA_

Neji stared at it, eyes wide and brow furrowed, heart beating hard.

_Kami…_

He'd been summoned.

_Assigned…_

Time slipped past unnoticed, the little white square begging to be opened, like a window to another world. The world he'd fought tooth and nail to gain entry to. A world where freedom took the form of wheels within wheels and walls within walls – only never stable, always in motion, serving as illusions of boundaries because there _were_ no boundaries. Just belief systems. Just circles of conscience that ANBU worked within and without.

Neji reached up with aching arms, untied his _hitai-ate_, pulled it free from his scarred brow, felt the phantom pains of the curse mark still fresh in his mind from Hyūga Hitaro's intermittent tortures.

_No more…_

He felt a fierce beating in his chest, like that of trapped wings.

_Never again…_

He took up the ANBU mask, crabbed his pale fingers around the smooth ceramic and fit its perfect mould against his face; felt a lightness in his chest, a tingling in his hands, a breathless sense of surrender and an overwhelming sense of gain.

The note lay waiting against the sheets, undisturbed and briefly forgotten.

The keys to his cage.

Indeed, a little white window...opening out into a world where all doors to the heart were closed.

* * *

**TBC**.

**A/N:** Seasons Greetings, faithful readers and kind reviewers! It is with much sadistic surprise and masochistic madness that I return this Christmas and New Year to bring you the final instalment of the BtB series. I hope that this _crazy long_ first chapter has given you enough plot meat and character drama to chew on as I get the next one written and ready. There's a lot happening here, so prepare yourselves. Hmn. Anyone wanting to brain themselves yet? Or is that just me? As always, I wouldn't be doing this if not for the incredible **support** and **love** that you people have shown both this series and my 'currently-in-progress' original works. I will be posting up a journal entry over at my _dArt page_ more worthy of your time and interest than this A/N note. Please know that I **appreciate** you so much and I'm ever warmed and touched and delighted by your encouragement, commens and thoughts. Your reviews and feedback are my chakra soldier pills! And now, please buckle up. The ride is about to begin.

**A/N 2:** Will return to this chapter later to scout for missed typos (the buggers!) As always, check dArt for any news/updates etc.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: NARUTO and its characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement intended.

Title: UNDER THESE SCARS

Pairings: ShikaNeji/NejiShika, Shikaku/Yoshino, Kakashi/Genma

Rating: M / R (language, themes, violence etc.)

Genre: Drama/Angst/General

Summary: Fate's changed the game but it's not over between the players. With Kusagakure's mission as the final round, Neji's agenda is finding his freedom. Shikamaru's agenda is forgetting his fear. But when an old and unfinished game threatens to pull Shikamaru back into the shadows of his past, Neji must make an impossible choice; his own destiny or Shikamaru's darkness. NejiShika, ShikaNeji [SEQUEL to Break to Breathe]

**Timeline**: Shippuden. Neji and Shikamaru aged 17-18 (post-Hidan and Kakuzu arc and pre-Invasion of Pain arc) One week after the events in REQUIEM.

* * *

**UNDER THESE SCARS**

by Okami Rayne

**Chapter Two**

Shadows, black as night and all around. They moved and Shikamaru moved with them, moved _within_ them. No separation of self. No demarcation of flesh from darkness. They'd become one in the same, a single entity. He understood.

_I am my shadows._

"_No. You're not." _

He turned towards the voice, an incorporeal sense of floating. Searched the black, met the speaker's gaze and thought, with a detached kind of fascination, how Ino would've liked this guy. He wore her favourite colour in his eyes.

Wait. Those eyes.

_I know you…_

Comprehension, a sudden smudge of awareness that began to fill in that disembodied face; a vague impression of pale violet eyes set in strong angular features, the high cheeks and chiselled jaw framed by long ash-blond strands.

It wasn't clear enough.

He tried to look closer.

Steel flashed before his eyes, a violent streak in the dark.

_NO!_

Blood arced in a glistening rope, thick red droplets trailing high before splashing into the shadows, a mass of writhing black tongues.

Shikamaru's mouth filled with the taste; salty, metallic, warm.

He gagged and spun – or tried to. He had no perspective to turn around or turn away. No means to establish the depth or dimension of this darkness. It left him immaterial and powerless, detached from everything but the black.

_Because I am my shadows._

"_No. You're not."_

Again that voice! He had to find those eyes. That face.

_That man._

He searched again for the stranger he thought he knew but couldn't name. Searched the darkness, searched the shadows. Found him...and wished he hadn't. Bile welled up, acid in Shikamaru's throat. The violet-eyed face hung like a demonic mask, ripped open from the right corner of its mouth all the way across the cheek in a gruesome Cheshire smile. Blood pumped from the flapping skin, teeth and tongue washed red – but still those ruined lips moved, still that familiar voice rasped.

"_Run. Run now. Run and don't look back!"_

_Wait!_

He reached for the man.

Blinding light, it blew apart the darkness, erased the vision of the disfigured face, filled Shikamaru's senses up until he burned from the pain, ripped out of shadow and thrust into the light. He tried to yell but a mouth descended on him, a wet hot tongue wrapping around his own, swallowing up his scream.

"_Show me your nature."_

_GET OFF ME!_

Shikamaru tore awake, the nightmare alive in his mind. He lashed out, struck the lamp and clutter on his desk, sent them crashing to the floor with his body close behind. A glassy _pop _and the light cut out, plunging the room into darkness.

A roaring in his ears, a high-pitched ringing…

Then his heartbeat; banging so hard in his chest it left him breathless.

_Breathe!_

He panted hard, gasped for air that wouldn't come and lay there stunned, swamped by staccato visions – a torn face, purple eyes, black eyes, shadows and blinding light – too numb to register pain, his split cheek wet against the floorboards, eyes wide and staring.

_Stop…_

Panic gripped him, sweated through him.

_Stop…_

Iced over his body and froze his ability to think, process, react.

_STOP!_

Rescue came, a subconscious scream tearing through his brain. Deafening. Overwhelming. Shikamaru's mind cut-out and a spasm shook him from the base of his spine to the base of his skull – quick as a reflex, violent as a seizure. His eyes rolled back, a sweet shiver of something warm flooding his veins along with the disturbing sensation that something was slipping away from him…something…someone…

_No. No. No. Wake up…wake up…WAKE UP…_

Fighting for consciousness, Shikamaru's eyes flickered open, half-lidded and rolling. He thought he saw that face he could barely recall, the features blurring into a mess of blood and shadow. And words, faint and receding, a dying echo in the emptiness where the nightmare had lived just moments before.

"_No. You're not."_

_Not what? Not what?_

His body went slack. The heat left his veins, left him cold. A few more seconds of disoriented panic – and then his brain bounced back from its blackout, knocking him hard. His stomach roiled and he swallowed back the urge to heave. The pain came next, unfolding in a rush; cheek throbbing, knee twinging, a winded sensation of having landed at the least desirable angle on the unforgiving floor.

_Floor…room…my room._

A ragged breath shivered out of him. "Shit," he whispered, shaky, dazed.

It took another couple of blinks for his eyes to adjust to the gloom; familiar surroundings, familiar shapes – right down to the whorls and loops in the hardwood flooring. He'd always thought they looked like faces, warped and out of focus and—

_Wait a second…_

How'd he end up on the floor? And how'd he manage to land on his face? Frowning, Shikamaru lifted his jaw and hissed at the pain. Damn, but the right side of his face hurt. He grimaced, felt the pull and sting of split skin across his cheek. The thought triggered another mutinous churn in his gut, brought a nauseating taste to his mouth, the phantom tang of blood. He stroked his tongue across his teeth, searching for cut gums or chipped enamel. Nothing.

_You're fine. Just…get up and get on…_

He wasn't sure where that mental turn of phrase came from, but he obeyed.

Wincing, he slid his palms beneath him, lifted his aching torso off the floor. Took him a woozy second to realise that he'd left one of his legs behind, tangled up in the sheets on the bed. That explained the face-plant onto the floor. Perfect. What a way to wake. He couldn't actually remember falling asleep, let alone falling out of bed. Even the nightmare felt fuzzy now, the horrors fragmented, almost forgotten. He tried to think, but his head pounded at the effort to remember.

_I swear, if I just gave myself a fucking concussion…_

Anger flushed through him, hot and immediate, safer than the fear, distracting him from the cold sweat slicked across his skin.

_Get up, genius._

Snarling, Shikamaru kicked his leg free from the sheets and regained his feet, ripping his damp t-shirt up and over his head with a growl. He stripped the bed of its sheets, pillow cases, everything. Sharp jerky movements, all played out with absolutely no sign of the shakes and shortness of breath that normally accompanied his nightmares.

He was far too pissed off to notice. Far too eager to wash away the night, rather than stop and think about the nightmare. Far too determined, as always, to forget it, erase it, move past it.

_Screw it._

Growling, he swiped the blood from his cheek and bundled the sheets under his arm, toeing his way around slivers of broken glass. He'd come back after a shower to clear the mess, sweep up the crap, put all the damned pieces back where they belonged.

_Just like that. Stupid simple._

As stupid simple as turning his back on the scene, completely unaware of the shadows gathered in the four corners of the room, their unnatural thickness holding like a pent up breath, diffusing in a great black sigh as the door clicked shut, unrolling a dark vaporous mist across the floorboards, swallowing up scattered shogi pieces, a Magic 8 Ball, a mess of paperwork and scribbled notes…a toppled picture of Team 10…and a fallen clock that winked a lonesome 4AM.

* * *

Neji re-read the note.

No directive, just a set of directions penned in a capital letters scrawl explaining where his ANBU handler would be waiting. He memorised the route, slung his knapsack over his shoulder and exited through the window, tucking the note into his robes. As he moved he felt a lightness in his step, an unseen wind beneath unseen wings.

No birdsong greeted him, just eerie silence.

All was still. Wisps of fog hung low in the Hyūga compound, feathering across the deserted courtyard and the polished wooden walkways. Neji moved ghost-like through the haze, his mist-white eyes drifting upward where the sky glowed a soft tea rose to the East, promising a red dawn.

A red moon last night. A red morning this day.

Yet the morbidity of these signs seemed weak and insubstantial. He had no desire to think on omens, not when he carried a concrete talisman in his knapsack. From the second he'd picked up the ANBU mask and felt its smooth icy fit against his skin, he'd felt an inextinguishable warmth in his blood, a fire in his belly. Gone was the chill that'd gripped him for months, that sense of being powerless and essentially frozen in place, completely disarmed of hope or guarantee, unable to move forward, unable to _progress_.

_No more. Finally, there's nothing in my way…_

Nothing more to wait on. Nothing more to fight against. Nothing standing between him and his destiny – between him and his freedom.

And then he turned the corner.

Hyūga Hitaro stood at the gates, his gaze as artic as his smile was cold.

On instant guard, Neji slowed his pace but didn't stop. Yesterday he'd have stopped, yesterday, he'd have offered a stilted bow. But not today. Not even tomorrow.

_Never again._

He kept his gaze set forward, his shoulders squared, braced for whatever vitriol or violence the elder might direct his way. For all Hitaro's persistence in tormenting him, Neji could never predict which weapon Hitaro would use; poisonous words, a chakra-charged touch...the curse mark.

A twinge of phantom pain.

Neji squinted against the ache behind his eyes.

Crazy, given everything he'd endured and overcome. But even Ibiki's psychological torments and ANBU's gruelling drills were preferable to Hitaro's sadism; because this, here, was personal. Deeply personal. An attack directed at his heart, not his head. While the scar tissue he'd accumulated over the past few weeks had become a kind of impenetrable armour, some scabs Ibiki had torn open still itched with that old familiar fever. That old familiar rage.

_Breathe._

A quiet exhale, vaporous breath swirling away. Neji envisioned the anger drifting away with it, felt calmer and more in control. And then Hitaro's wide downturned mouth twisted at the corners in a crude imitation of a smile.

Neji knew that smile, cunning as it was cruel.

"I'm surprised at you, Neji," Hitaro murmured.

Wary of the dark amusement in those words, Neji slowed to a stop under the pretence of adjusting his knapsack. He kept his gaze beyond the gate even as Hitaro moved casually to bar his path.

"After all the arduous hours of training, after all the progress she's made," Hitaro sighed the words as if it pained him deeply to speak them, arms crossed and folded into the shadows of his sleeves as he turned a slow meditative circle around Neji. "All that precious family sentiment you instilled within her heart, making her believe that she could make a difference," he paused, clucked his tongue with the disappointed air of a school master and angled Neji with a chiding look. "All that hope. Just to leave her behind."

"Contrary to your low opinion of Hiashi-sama's daughter," Neji gritted between this teeth, "Hinata-sama possesses both the maturity and the prudence to understand why I didn't select her for this mission. Assignments are never personal."

"Oh Neji," Hitaro tutted, a gleeful menace burning behind the ice in his eyes. "Whoever said I was talking about the mission?"

Like a knife to the gut, a ruthless stab.

Neji sucked a breath through his nose, stomach clenching. He stiffened as Hitaro leaned in, felt the blade twist deeper as the elder passed a conspiratorial glance over Neji's shoulder, gazing back towards the Hyūga mansions.

"I wonder how _understanding_ she'll be when she learns that you're leaving her and her sister to a fate that you'd do just about _anything _to escape," Hitaro murmured, whisper soft. "Indeed, I can't help but wonder how impersonally she'll take it. As for Hanabi? Heavens, I shudder to think."

For a horrific moment, Neji's mind – so clear and calm just seconds before – filled with the makings of his nightmares. A vision of chains and cages; pain and persecution; obligation and orders; Hizashi's blood on his twin brother's hands; Hinata and Hanabi with their fingers linked, laughing, smiling, safe because he'd made it so – and then Neji saw himself…not in the picture…barely in the frame…a black and white portrait in a storm of moving images…a foolish and forgetful child…a pathetic paper tiger…his stripes unchanged…destined to walk the same road…defending a Hyūga sibling, a sister, a cousin…destined to live his father's life…destined to die his father's death…

_No._

So strong was the sense of utter rejection, so deep and sickening and straight from his soul that he almost reeled back from Hitaro to spew bile and acid onto the grey pebbled path. He would have too, would've coughed up every rotten emotion he had left to lose if every fibre in his body hadn't become as leaden and cold as the armour-plated heart pounding out a loud and violent rebellion in his chest.

_Never again. Never again._

He would not become another sacrifice. Another martyr.

_Another victim…_

And without a second's hesitation as to what it would mean or what it might cost, Neji closed his eyes, wrapped cold mental fingers around the hilt of that blade Hitaro had buried in his heart and ripped it free, severing emotional chords and bonds of feeling in one numb slice.

The sickness left him.

The scar tissue thickened.

His heart calmed.

And when his eyes opened, the emptiness within them had Hitaro drawing back. The elder regarded him for a long hard second, eyes narrowed in speculation and a hint of dawning surprise. He scoffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "Foolish child. You exchange a prison for a tomb. Whether you die in a cage or behind a mask, you're still your father's son. Even now, severing your family ties as Hizashi did, the outcome is the same, inevitable as it is inescapable. His fate is all you'll ever have to gain."

Numb to the words – and to the splinters of truth that would've driven them deeper – Neji shook his head, lips curved in a bleak smile. "If that is true," he murmured. "Then I truly have nothing left to lose, do I?"

Hitaro's expression arched fractionally, mouth pursed in a thick knot, as if the sweet taste of victory had suddenly soured. Even the malice that'd glowed behind his eyes had guttered out. His cruelty spent. Even then, he made a condescending show of removing himself from Neji's path, turning aside to sweep out a hand in a gesture of pardon and mock encouragement, the long sleeve of his robe flapping like a white flag between them.

_As if he'd ever surrender that power…_

Not on his life. A life that Neji would be expected to save. A life he'd be expected to sacrifice himself for. Hiashi. Hinata. Hanabi. Hitaro. Different as they were, his connection to them was ultimately the same. Hitaro, for all his cunning, hadn't bent _that_ truth so far out of shape. No matter which angle Neji looked at it from, the outcome was, as Hitaro had so determinably put it 'inescapable'.

_But not this time._

Neji sucked a breath against the rage, breathed it out on a mental whisper.

_Never again._

Standing on conviction alone, Neji left the compound…left his cousins…left pieces of himself…a scattering of feathers on the ashen-pebbled path.

* * *

"You should get a cat for this."

"Curiosity didn't work out too well for the cat, did it?"

"Isn't going to work out too well for you either, pup," Pakkun grumbled, wobbling his way along a narrow ridge of grey-tiled rooftop.

Kakashi followed at a crouch, muscles bunched, body low. Given the residential area they'd entered, keeping elevated served them better than navigating the lanes below. Their current route had taken them along the rooftops of several large three-storey _kura_ _dozō_;traditional earthenstorehouses, a set of grand and stately repositories built to withstand fire, frost and silver-haired fools with half-baked illusions of…

_Of what?_

Rescuing Genma under the guise of friendly interference? A play at family intervention?

_He's not family._

None one who'd mattered ever had been; Minato-sensei, Obito, Rin, Sasuke, Asuma. But he still mourned them, still missed them. The thought stopped Kakashi cold. He paused, gazed out at the surrounding buildings with their dove-grey tiles and white-plastered walls and wondered at the colour of his own fortified lockbox; a place where ornaments of grief and heirlooms of regret lay gathering dust on the highest shelves.

_Saving Genma won't change what I've done…_

Or what he hadn't done. How arrogant to assume he possessed the ability to save anyone. The only person he'd ever saved had been himself. Over and over, preserving what was left and letting go of anything or anyone that threatened to take too much away from him.

_And in doing so, I've let so many people down…_

Genma hadn't been wrong about Kakashi's sense of penance; Kakashi just wasn't willing to let the Shiranui be all the right about it either.

_Not this time._

A soft huff called him back.

He blinked, looked across.

Pakkun had stopped a couple of paces ahead, wrinkled face tilted back. "You shout at me for taking a five-second piss and you're standing there daydreaming."

A practiced smile and Kakashi's grey eye twinkled with false light. "Sorry."

Pakkun sniffed, not buying the act, but not calling Kakashi on it either – a rare thing for his pugnacious little dog. Much as it pained the copy-nin to have his ninken so on-edge around him, in that moment it served his privacy and thus his purposes.

He nodded and Pakkun continued on, leading Kakashi beyond the gathering of _kura_ _dozō_ to the lower rooftops of merchant townhouses. Moving quickly across the elegantly shingled and expensively tiled roofs, Kakashi caught his shadow passing over delicate courtyard gardens; lonely wisterias, mossy stone lanterns and manicured shrubs with impeccable squares of coloured pea gravel and the occasional spiral of pale raked sand.

Kakashi frowned, loping around an ornate roof ornament. "You sure we're in the right neighbourhood?"

Pakkun snorted. "What were you expecting? Some kind of back-alley opium den?"

_Exactly that._

Kakashi grimaced at the naïveté – or was it convenience? – of the image he'd conjured in his mind, unimaginative and embarrassingly clichéd; he'd pictured Genma frequenting some dilapidated hovel crowded by grungy addicts with nothing in their eyes, needles in their veins and little pink pills between their teeth. It'd been easier to imagine that. Easier to imagine how he'd go about _dealing _with it. Who gave a damn about exterminating a rat's nest? A lion's den, however, was another matter entirely.

_Plan of action, _he mused drily, _always good to have one._

Pakkun paused on the next roof, began sniffing around the tiles.

Right on the _ninken's _heels, Kakashi ducked low in an attempt to minimise his shadow and squatted beside the dog, scanning the immediate area. He picked up a cigarette butt, one of six dogends littering the tiles along with several more pieces of trash and signs of traffic; rotten sunflower seeds and pistachio shells, a couple of food wrappings, blobs of dried chewing gum and a lone shōchū bottle caught in the cobwebbed eaves.

Apparently the roof served as an impromptu waiting room for ninja clients.

"Guess this is the place," he murmured.

"You're welcome," Pakkun grumbled, hopping up onto the ridge.

Kakashi snapped his fingers, grey eye blazing. "Get down. You're casting a shadow."

"So are you." Pakkun tucked his body into a ball. "Least I'm small enough to pass for a pigeon."

"A pigeon…" Kakashi riposted with complete sarcasm. "Incredible."

"Speak for yourself. You're one sorry looking heron you obnoxious pup."

Again with the long lost pet-name; the _ninken_ hadn't teased Kakashi with that silly little endearment in years. He never thought he'd miss hearing it given all the childhood and teenage years it dug up. Long and lonely years…bitter years…years made easier by the presence and protection of the _ninken_ pack, especially during Kakashi's ANBU days. For all his mistakes and all the phases of the inconstant moon within his soul, they'd always been there for him.

_Always._

And for all his terrible puns and all his evasive turns of phrase, Kakashi felt the sobering truth when it came to 'man's best friend'.

He glanced sidelong at Pakkun and his gaze softened.

The balcony door opened below.

Pakkun ducked out of sight.

Cursing, Kakashi twisted on his hip and slid sideways into the deep 'V' of shadow between the double-gabled roof, pressing his back into the tiles, heels and elbows wedged. He cocked his head, listening out.

There came a woman's phlegmy cough, wet and rattling. He'd heard the sound before.

_Hayate_.

The name came and went, left Kakashi wondering about terminable illnesses and rates of recovery. Not that he believed Genma's condition to be incurable.

_Just complicated. And messy._

Yet here he was, about to get his hands dirty. Tuning out the coughing, he listened to the ritual sounds of tea being poured; the soft tinkle of water, the brisk tap of a whisk frothing the brew. Beneath the chink of porcelain, Kakashi caught the scuff of sandaled feet and the clop of wooden _geta_. Two people; one female and one unknown – at least until the woman spoke.

"My dear Dr Mushi," she purred, her soft tones raspy and low, either by design or damaged health. "What brings you to my seedy little parlour?"

"Hardly the words I'd use to describe it. You've done very well for yourself," the doctor responded. "Turn around, let me have a look at you." A soft smack, as if he'd clapped his hands together. "Ah Mizugumo, seeing you looking so radiant makes me a very happy man."

"And if your currency were false compliments I'd be a very rich woman."

"It wasn't a false compliment. And am I to believe that you don't think yourself rich?"

Mizugumo gave a throaty, seductive laugh. "You didn't come here to play those little shrink games with me, did you? How disappointing."

"No." A brief pause and the doctor cleared his throat. "I…need a favour."

Chair legs scraping, the rustle of thick brocaded fabric. "Won't you have a seat?"

"I'm afraid I can't stay."

"Tsk'. That's what all the boys say come morning."

"Then you haven't found the right man yet, have you?" Spoken in a tone a parent might take with a child. Who was this woman to this man? And Mushi – Kakashi could've sworn he'd heard the name before. As for Mizugumo…that rang some dark and distant bells from back in his ANBU days.

Mizugumo's silence felt marginally chilly. "What do you need?"

"Nirvana."

"Oh my darling, don't we all?"

He sighed. "Mizugumo."

"Twenty thousand ryo."

"Twenty thous—!" Mushi broke off, took a calming breath. "Are you punishing me for caring about your emotional welfare?"

"Punishing you? I just gave you a discount. You're not my only client." Her next words sounded muffled and hollow, as if she'd raised a cup to her lips. "And you're certainly not my father."

"I cannot afford that."

"Few can. But there are other ways to pay."

A lip-fluttering breath, as if the doctor had blown out his cheeks. "You still want me to get you a donor?"

"My, you make it sound so _scandalous_."

"You know I can't do that. It's unethical."

"Oh but _this_ is? You coming here, asking me for drugs you can't obtain anywhere else, much less legally prescribe." Mizugumo snorted. "Tell me, good doctor, what client of yours would need Nirvana that isn't already in a hospital or a breath away from sweet release as it is? In fact, why isn't Tsunade your first port of call?"

"The situation is complicated. But I mean to make it easier."

"Easier…" Mizugumo murmured. She set her cup down, a soft clink in the quiet that followed. "You mean to euthanize your patient." Mushi's silence affirmed it. Mizugumo sighed. "Quite the little intrigue. Does the Hokage know?"

"No."

Kakashi's ears pricked. A doctor euthanizing a patient? Without clearing it with Tsunade? An infringement made all the more alarming considering that this man sounded as if he were a psychiatrist rather than a physician.

_What the hell is going on here?_

A shuffle from above.

Kakashi went rigid, until Pakkun hunkered down on top of his head. The copy-nin scowled but made no sound, his ears pinned on the silence that'd settled over the balcony.

A sharp drumming, nails against the table-top. "Nirvana isn't a happy pill, good doctor. I don't go handing that out to my children unless they've written and signed their own permission slips. They tend to read: '_I, being of sound mind and memory do declare_—"

"Mizugumo…"

"Or my personal favourite; Goodbye cruel world…"

"Mizugumo, please!"

"Oh hush." She fell into a brief silence herself, broken by another click of nails. "If I or my sweet boys and girls were to be implicated in any way."

"I have kept your secrets for over fifteen years, Mizugumo."

"Oh yes, you've certainly done our doctor-patient confidentiality justice. Though I hardly think that's what inspires you to keep your silence. Either way, it's one thing to deal in drugs underneath the Hokage's nose, another thing entirely to deal in death."

Mushi sighed. "And even after all this time you still believe that there's a difference? That's always been your problem, Mizugumo and now it's proved to be your undoing."

A vicious hiss and Kakashi heard the chair legs scraping back. "No one speaks to me that way," Mizugumo uttered, her voice thin and weak beneath the strain of a withheld cough. "If you aren't interested in my offer then I suggest you leave."

"Please think about it, Mizugumo. This man is in a great deal of pain."

"As are all my children, dear doctor."

"And so are you, I imagine. If you would just set aside your stubbornness and seek Tsunade-sama's assistance it might not be too late for you to—"

"While it might not be too late for me, it is much too late for _that_. It always was."

"Mizugumo…"

"Hush. You can't save us all, good doctor. And when I'm no longer here to adopt your messes and ease the pain of your failed cases…" she trailed off, letting the implication of those words linger. "Now, you think about that offer some more. And when you're done, we'll settle it over tea. Jasmine. Your favourite."

Mushi was silent for a time, heightening the riddle of this woman's words. Failed cases? Adopted messes? Did that apply to Genma? Kakashi couldn't imagine the senbon-chewing cynic sitting across from a shrink, much less spilling his guts.

_So he comes here? To this woman?_

At length, Mushi spoke, his voice a deflated murmur. "Goodbye, Mizugumo."

She didn't show him out.

Kakashi heard the doctor's receding footfalls, a brisk scuttle through the house and out onto the street. Given the dirty nature of whatever business this man was caught up in, his retreat should've been nothing more to Kakashi than the crawling of a cockroach from someone else's wreckage. And yet…

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "Follow him."

Pakkun lifted from his flop, paws ruffling through Kakashi's hair. "You sure about that?"

Kakashi didn't answer. Pakkun didn't ask again. Grumbling, the dog launched off the bed of tousled silver strands and with more grace than any feline might think a _ninken_ capable of, he streaked across the rooftop, nimble and quiet as a cat.

Kakashi made no move, waited on the woman. No sound from her since Mushi's exit.

All was disturbingly quiet.

A good three minutes later and Kakashi had to wonder if she hadn't somehow vanished under the cover of the doctor's steps. Planting his palms, he arched his back away from the slope, body twisting into a silent turn as he eased down closer to the eaves – then froze.

A rustle, not unlike the dry leaves caught in the guttering.

Kakashi tilted his head, identified the noise as some fabric or the other, followed by the soft zipping whisper of cloth or strings being tied or undone; something metallic touching the table; a rough scrape and fizz of a match; a faint crackle. Ribbons of smoke curled up around the eaves and the strong smell of tobacco filled Kakashi's senses – along with the base note of a sweet, grassy odour. Heady and pungent. He could taste it even through the filter of his mask, musty across his tongue.

"Come into my parlour," sang the low raspy tones, "said the spider to the naughty little gadfly."

Kakashi stiffened, grey eye flaring.

_Impossible._

"Oh don't be coy. I know you're there. I always know when I've got company. I get this warm and pleasant tingle."

The only tingle Kakashi felt was the warning prickle at the back of his neck, icy and in no way pleasant. Frowning, he hooked his thumb under his _hitai-ate_ and uncovered his Sharingan, mismatched gaze sweeping across the rooftop, searching for the trap he'd fallen into, eyes widening upon what he discovered; there, strung so delicately and fitted so ingeniously within the lines of the blue-grey tiles, twinkled thin gossamer threads of chakra – a veritable web.

_Just as a spider would sense its prey…_

The chakra web laced the entire rooftop, casting a sensory net beneath his feet. He shifted his weight, watched the thin strings tremble, so sheer and transparent they were almost invisible.

"Clever," he murmured.

"Won't you come down? It's awful chilly up there."

Discovered, Kakashi saw no benefit in delaying the inevitable. He pulled his _hitai-ate _down over his red eye, flattened his palm to the cold tiles and swung over and under the awning. Landing in a crouch on the balcony railing, a kunai spinning over the knuckles of his right hand, he angled the blade along the length of his forearm, ready to strike – until his gaze swung even with Mizugumo's and he almost dropped the weapon altogether.

Eyes the colour of a clear winter sky; a blue so pale they held the iridescence of silver.

Drawing a breath as if stricken, Kakashi lowered the kunai.

Mizugumo inclined her head, a beguiling tilt that sent her thick ankle-length mane of dark lustreless hair swishing across the balcony floor; the colour of lampblack, its lifeless matte texture was saved by the soft and glistening strands of silver that streaked from the thick roots to the weathered ends. Even her skin, translucent and white as a clear-quartz crystal, revealed delicate cobwebs of blue and purple veins; and lines soft as spider-silk creased the corners of her bewitching eyes and bloodless lips. Wrapped in a dark grey kimono embroidered with an intricate pattern of silver-white spiderwebs, she was at once as beautiful and horrifying as an embalmed body laid upon its deathbed.

"Hatake Kakashi," Mizugumo purred, her ashen lips curving around the end of the slim elegant pipe hovering at her mouth. "Such a beautiful face I never thought I'd see."

Transfixed as he was, it took Kakashi a moment to register the pun buried in the compliment. He shook his head, at a momentary loss. "You know me," he eventually said.

Mizugumo hummed deeply. "Your reputation precedes you, little white fang."

Like a razor across a rusted vein, the red so dark, so polluted with feeling. It broke the spell. Kakashi's eye widened then sharpened on her. "Don't call me that."

Amused at the snarl behind his words, Mizugumo made a soft 'o' with her lips, pouting with false contrition. "Daddy issues are such troublesome things, aren't they?"

An eviscerating pause, in which Kakashi felt as if his guts had turned to water and spilled out across the balcony. He drew his head back slowly, thinking he'd underestimated this woman – this witch.

Turning in her seat, Mizugumo tsk'd softly and tapped the dottle from her pipe, eyeing him from beneath the long sweep of her lashes. "I must apologise, I have a horrid sense of accuracy when it comes to tragedy." She glanced at the kunai gripped in his white-knuckled fingers. "Oh, how precious. You'd be doing me a favour. But not my children. Is that why you're here?"

Feeling the urge to plant his feet and steady his head, Kakashi dropped down from the railing. He straightened from his crouch with the wariness of a wolf who'd just uncovered some serious sheep's clothing, one hand fixed on the railing, the other clenched tight around the kunai. He kept his distance. "You're dying," he said.

Mizugumo refilled her pipe, lit it and sucked a long, savouring breath, lashes fluttering in a kind of brief ecstasy before she breathed out her words on a whisper. "Ah yes, the deep dark winter encroaches like frost across my soul…it steals a little more light from my eyes, a little more colour from my skin…" she trailed off and turned those hauntingly beautiful eyes up towards him, gazing with the naked innocence of a child. "Tell me, Hatake Kakashi, am I not beautiful?"

Anger a dying ember in his gut, Kakashi swallowed hard, astounded at his inability to look away, compelled by some unnameable need to answer her. "You are," he said – and he meant it.

Perhaps the answer surprised them both, for Mizugumo's eyes cracked at their outermost corners, delicate fractures of ice. And then she laughed, that throaty bitter rasp. "You do not lie," she marvelled, her gaze drifting beyond him, softening on some distant point. She stroked long fingers across her elegant neck, traced the filigree patterns of age lined across the weathered skin. "Yet I am not comforted. I've yet to find a pill for this particular affliction. As for you, my dear? What brings you to my parlour?"

Disarmed of his original plan, Kakashi slid his kunai away and pinched a more useful weapon from his pocket. Raising his hand, he rolled a small pink pill between thumb and forefinger.

A dark silver-flecked brow flicked upward, but her cool she-wolf eyes regarded him levelly. "Now where would you have happened upon that little bread crumb?"

Kakashi's expression betrayed nothing. "What is it?"

"Oh Genma," Mizugumo sighed to the vacant chair beside her, cradling the bowl of her pipe between her long spindly fingers. "I certainly hope he hasn't been handing those around like candy. I should be very cross with him."

"What is it?" Kakashi asked again, his voice lower, softer – far more dangerous.

"Dukkha," Mizugumo answered and, reading the confusion in his gaze, added, "It means suffering."

Kakashi stopped rolling the pill. "Suffering," he husked. "Is that supposed to be ironic?"

Mizugumo, having drawn deeply on her pipe, choked out a sound halfway between a laugh and a cough, waving a slender hand to scatter the smoke. "In a fashion, yes. Dukkha puts an end to suffering, so I suppose the irony pleases me."

"Then you'll appreciate the irony of my next words." Kakashi held up the pill. "This 'suffering' of yours? It ends now."

Drawing back in her seat, Mizugumo's eyebrows lifted around a look of arch amusement, her smile just a tad indulgent. She regarded him for some time. "Oh Kakashi," she eventually crooned. "You are either very innocent or very idealistic. And considering how closely tied those two are, I'm hard-pressed not to think you're an intoxicating mix of both." And then the amusement washed out of her expression, leaving her face both wistful and sad. "And for all your tragedy, that is such a beautiful combination. The darkness didn't suit you, did it? Is that why you left?"

Astonished, appalled, Kakashi shook his head, not realising he'd taken a step back. His voice came out hoarse around the sudden tightness in his throat. "You know nothing about me."

Snorting, embers flew from the end of Mizugumo's pipe. She stabbed a long black-lacquered nail towards him, a fierceness firing behind her ghostly eyes. "But I know about the _nothingness_," she uttered, the gravel in her voice roughened by blood and smoke. "I know about the aching, bottomless pits within men and women's souls. I know what they harbour. You have the way of the ANBU about you and yet you are the first of that breed to gaze upon my decimation, my disease, and call me beautiful." She raised a hand, gave a short little laugh. "Oh, you are not the first to _say_ it, but you are the first to _mean _it."

And what that said about either of them, Kakashi couldn't fathom and didn't want to know. He studied her across the short distance, his wariness deepening into something much more disconcerting. What danger, what darkness, lurked within this sick and dying woman? A creature who was aged yet untouched, ruined yet preserved; she was certainly older than him by a good twenty years if not more…and yet…

Yet he could not look away.

And he would not recant the truth of what he'd spoken.

_Truth…_

Who'd have guessed that this woman would be so open, so honest? So horribly honest. He'd imagined her drawing him into a web of lies and extortion only to have her unravelling 'truth' in whisker-thin threads. And now his mind scrambled to grasp those threads and pull them together; find the pattern, the design. It didn't take the boldness of her words or the directness of her stare to assure him that scare tactics wouldn't work on her. He sensed it viscerally. One wolf to another. Perhaps for a woman so close to death, her lack of fear was unsurprising; perhaps it made her all the more dangerous. Or perhaps self-preservation might prove to make her…

_Desperate._

Kakashi's eye narrowed in consideration. "A donor," he said. "You need one."

Mizugumo stroked the mouthpiece of the pipe along her lips, smiling. "Goodness, Kakashi, no threats? No tantrums? Straight to negotiation. I like you. I like you very much."

"Threatening you is pointless," Kakashi argued, if only to escape the intensity of her stare, the enchantment of her smile. "You spoke to Mushi about failed cases, in which case I'm assuming a great percentage of your clientele are either ANBU, ROOT or ex-operatives from both divisions." At her deepening smile he added. "Even if you _hadn't_ wanted me to hear that, the only possible reason you could be operational is because you cater to a very dangerous group of men and women within this village." He palmed the pill in his hand, made a fist. "And regardless of what I think about you or your business, I'm not in the habit of passing judgement on my own kind."

"No," Mizugumo murmured. "Just the one. Do you think he'll thank you?"

Kakashi's grip tightened around the pill. He slid his fist into his pocket and glanced up at her without raising his head. "You stop supplying Genma and I'll start supplying you. Tell me what you need."

Eyes narrowing, Mizugumo regarded him for a long steady moment, puffing softly on her pipe. "Your word, first of all. Not that it affords me any real protection against Tsunade should she discover—"

"I have no interest in upsetting this particular applecart."

"No. No doubt 'your kind' wouldn't take too well to having their crutches ripped out from under them. You'd have a lot to answer for, even if you _did_ wind up the inadvertent hero."

Kakashi shook his head. "I'm not trying to be a hero."

"And yet here you are. Bargaining for the better interests of your…what? Your comrade? Your friend?" She paused, shot him a sly look from the corner of one piercing eye. "Your lover?"

Kakashi's pulse spiked and his expression froze. Fearing that his stillness would give him away, he arched a brow as if to say he found the question both tedious and trivial. "My reasons are irrelevant. Supply and demand, isn't that how this works?"

"Oh yes. Ordinarily. But you fascinate me so." Mizugumo tipped her head back, a thin stream of smoke snaking from her upturned lips. "You know, I like and respect that you value self-preservation, Kakashi. Some believe it's a coward's game but nothing could be further from the truth." She stretched her arm out, the long sleeve of her kimono passing in a whisper over the table as she tapped the burnt tobacco from her pipe. "Self-preservation invites as much pain as it prevents. It's a double-edged sword. You appear to wield it well enough. Genma, however…" she trailed off, sucked her teeth, rows of chipped enamel set in bluish gums. "He's fallen upon that sword. My poor boy cuts himself but not his ties." She flicked him a coy look. "Not like you, darling. You've done very well. Very well indeed to never have come knocking on my door throughout your time in the ANBU. Either you cope very well or you cut very, _very_ deep. So deep that you stopped feeling the pain a long time ago, am I right?"

That rusty vein pulsed hard in his heart. Kakashi's expression hardened. "Will you agree to the exchange or not?"

She checked him with a look. "Tsk', so hasty. Especially considering what I'll be asking for in exchange."

"A donor," Kakashi said quietly, his voice unnervingly calm. "I heard you perfectly. Just tell me what organs you need." His gaze went to her pipe, then back to her faintly smiling face. It was obvious what she needed, but he wasn't about to start taking this woman at face value.

Mizugumo's smile thinned. She set aside her pipe. "Tell me, Kakashi. Do you think that I brought this sickness upon myself?"

"It makes no difference to me."

"Oh but it does. It will. When the time comes. When you're considering age, size, blood type, lung capacity – all those cold little facts wrapped up in a warm body with a still-beating heart." She let the image diffuse like poison into the air between them; but outwardly, Kakashi showed nothing. Mizugumo applauded his total lack of reaction with another thin smile. "How do I know that you will find and deliver such a person to me?" A challenge, but here was something playful in the way she said it – as if she was testing him about a matter just outside of the question.

Kakashi didn't miss the precision of her words, nor did he miss the promise she expected from him in return. And so he said it. "I can." And then he sealed it. "And I will."

A heavy pause, in which she measured the mettle behind his words in some private chamber of her mind, nodding at length. "I believe you. In which case, I'll stop supplying Genma as of this instant. You have two weeks to get me what I need. Once the donor is in my possession, you have my word that I shall continue to honour my side of the agreement."

"Your word," Kakashi echoed, grey eye narrowing on her.

Mizugumo's brows went up. "The fact that I've agreed to stop supplying him even _before _I've gained anything ought to count for something. But then, _you're_ the one taking the gamble," Mizugumo was smiling as she said it. "I have little left to lose, Kakashi. But I always abide by my word."

And right now, that's all he had to go on. He nodded. "Alright."

Mizugumo inclined her head, her gaze drifting to the side in consideration. "But then there's Genma to consider."

"I'll deal with Genma."

"I should hope so. No doubt he'll be looking to deal with someone." She chuckled at her little pun, the sound like crackling leaves, and then her gaze sobered, fixed squarely on Kakashi. "He'll be more dangerous than ever. That doesn't please me."

Careful not to misinterpret those words, Kakashi frowned slightly. "You think Genma would threaten you?" That wasn't to be ruled out.

Yet Mizugumo gave a flat laugh, as if she found the idea preposterous. "Heavens, no. He's desperate but he's not stupid. And while desperate people often do stupid things, I think I have very strong deterrent in place."

"The applecart," Kakashi guessed.

"I find that the hornet's nest is a better analogy. By threatening me he'd be attacking the heart of my happy little hive."

"Hn. And if the Queen Bee is threatened," he muttered drily, the nasty outcome buzzing around his brain. Just how many drug-dependent elite killers would that bring down on Genma's head? More disturbing than that was the question of how many of those said killers were people Kakashi had known back in the day? Or still knew, even now? Kami, what did that say about ANBU? About Konoha? And then, a darker question…

_Just what in the hell does all this say about you?_

Mizugumo made a sharp little sound, as if sucking air through her teeth. "It hurts, doesn't it? Having that idealism shattered? Ignorance – or in your case, innocence – is a terrible thing to lose. You'll get over it. I did."

Jaw tight, Kakashi said nothing, just levelled their gazes, his grey eye hooded beneath the shadow of his lashes.

_Innocence…?_

Again that tainted word; that relic from a shattered childhood. He didn't like the way she was throwing it around, causing far more fragile things inside him to rattle on their high shelves. Was she baiting him? For what purpose?

_It doesn't matter. You have your agreement._

He kerbed his anger, drew a quiet breath. This woman was far too dangerous to play games with. He'd taken a gamble as it was. Besides, he only had one trump card – the donor trade. And he'd already shown that hand. If she refused the exchange, he might as well fold and get the hell out of here before she turned the entire table on him. God, with just a few choice words she'd squared off against him in ways no ANBU man or woman had ever dared to.

And then it struck him – belated but no less alarming.

His head came up a notch. "You were ANBU," he said, the statement catching him hard even as he voiced it – and somehow that voice seemed to come from way down in his chest, his carefully modulated tones now deeper and rougher…as if his throat were riddled with disease. He felt sick, just having spoken.

Mizugumo must've sensed his affliction, for the look she turned on him phased from surprise to suspicion to something that might've been sadness if it weren't so bitter. Her lips crooked in a hard smile. "Close enough, my dear, close enough."

The breath fled his lungs. "ROOT…" he husked, surprised despite himself, despite _her_…despite how obvious it should've been to him right from the first. "What happened?"

Turning her head, Mizugumo gnarled her fingers into her dark upholstered chair and, despite the prominent tremble in her arms and the strain around her tight-lipped mouth, she rose with the regal countenance of a queen, rounding the table to approach the balcony.

She spoke softly, as if to herself. "What happened, he asks…"

He shouldn't have asked. But he should've turned. Should've kept her in his direct line of sight. But something rooted him, held him to the same stillness that gripped Mizugumo as she came to stand beside him, her frail hands resting upon the railing, the skin delicate and lucent as wrinkled tissue paper, painted nails like drops of ink.

She turned her head a fraction, caught his sidelong gaze out the corner of her eye. "One day you'll stand as I do and ask yourself the same question. And maybe you'll have the answer I could never find."

His brow creased softly. "Why do you do this?"

She smiled a little, looked away and gazed out into the small courtyard garden, squinting as she set her gaze on a lone silver willow bent crooked over a pond, its long wilted leaves stroking across the water. "Supply and demand, my dear. That's all there is to it. Indeed, that's all there is to anything in this sweet wretched world. But rather than rail against it, I found myself a niche…and like a good little opportunist I exploited it."

He turned a little, his hip against the railing. "I don't believe you."

"I didn't suspect you would. You understand, of course."

He gazed at her, frowning softly. "Self-preservation."

Mizugumo closed her eyes for a brief second. "A man after my own heart. A couple of decades too late, I'm afraid…and I haven't preserved it all that well. That, more than anything requires a transplant."

"I don't believe that either."

She shook her head, gave a rusted chuckle. "There's that innocence again."

Kakashi studied her for a long moment, his gaze tracing the wrinkles that laced around her eyes. "You call your clients your children," he said quietly. "I can't think of a more double-edged sword to live by."

A tightening of the withered skin at her throat and Mizugumo's delicate hands folded around the railing, gave a brief squeeze. "I have enjoyed this conversation, Hatake Kakashi." She turned then, reached up and stroked the tips of her fingers across the ridge of his masked cheek.

Kakashi stiffened, felt the chill of her skin even through the fabric. Like death's touch. What disturbed him more was how he warmed to it, how he almost turned his face into her palm. Their gazes touched; iron-grey on silver-blue. What was this kinship? What was it in those she-wolf eyes that evoked a feeling more respectful than pity and more dangerous than sympathy? What was that feeling?

He searched her gaze and found it.

_Oh god…_

Empathy.

Kakashi startled, grey eye flaring wide. He jerked back from her with the stricken look of a confused animal, sensing the threat yet not understanding it. His heart thundered behind his ribs, the back of his neck slick with a cold sweat. He shook his head, his voice ragged. "What the hell are you?"

She watched him, her smile warm, gaunt ashen cheeks flushed the palest rose. Her hand hovered between them for a moment – as if reaching, grasping – and then it wilted to her side, the warmth dying on her lips, the colour draining from her face. "What I hope you'll never be," she uttered.

* * *

"_Is my smoke stinging your eyes or are you just happy to see me?"_

"_That's not funny, Asuma-sensei. This mascara isn't even waterproof! Oh my god, look at these panda rings!"_

"_Ha, you kinda look like Shikamaru. No offense, buddy."_

"_Sure. Like I'd take offense at being compared to a girl…"_

"_Well I totally take offense at being compared to Shikamaru! Thanks a lot, Chōji!"_

"_Jeez. Chill, Ino. I meant the dark rings."_

"_Would you lot settle down? Ino, you look fine. Chōji, fuel on fire isn't helping. Shikamaru...uh…catch up on your sleep and be the bigger person."_

"_Are you serious? I just let that whole 'being compared to Ino' thing slide."_

"_Pfft! Like he needs encouragement to slack off. Also, in what world would YOU be so lucky to be compared to ME?"_

"_The world where I bat my freakishly long eyelashes against the bad guys every time we're in a fix."_

"_Oh you JERK! I do NOT do that!"_

"_Ha! You should totally try it, 'Shika'."_

"_You should totally shut up, Chōji."_

"_Asuma-sensei! Where are you going? Don't leave me with these two idiots!"_

"_When you three kids are done slinging mud, I'll be waiting at the gate…smoking myself into a stoned haze."_

"_That's not funny either!"_

Asuma's laughter, deep and warm; it rolled through her mind, rumbled through her heart and shook her body like thunder. A stormy blue rain burned behind her eyes.

_Sensei…_

Blinking back the tears, Ino held the picture in her hands, wrists tilted so that the soft beige light filtering through the lilac curtains hit the edge of the frame and not the four faces smiling up at her through the glass.

Team 10.

Team Asuma.

"_We got the best and most badass sensei."_

_"Where'd my confident loudmouth go?"_

_"Where did _you_ go?" _

_"Not as far as you think."_

"Liar," she whispered, eyes squeezed shut against the cruelty of the dream and all the memories pressing behind it. The tears slipped free, one scalding ribbon at a time. Good thing she'd finally bought that waterproof mascara. She gave a watery little laugh, hoped that somehow, somewhere, Asuma might be smiling, laughing that deep rumbling laugh.

_It's just not the same without you._

Flopping back against the headboard, she crossed her arms over her chest and clutched the picture to her heart, fighting for control. She'd need it for this mission. The first they'd been on since they'd buried to two Akatsuki bastards.

_I pulled myself together for that, didn't I? Didn't we? _

She knew she had that control, that capability. But it'd been so damned _complicated_ lately. Family, friends, her future. All of it had become a writhing hot mess that burned away the pretty waxen pretences she kept trying to plaster over her life; between her parents escalating arguments, her disturbingly gross attraction to Kiba – _seriously hormones, what the hell? – _and her guilt-riddled dreams over Asuma's passing, it took burying her face into a pillow and screaming until her lungs ached to keep it from spilling out of her at the most inappropriate moments.

_I'm trying, sensei. I promise I'm trying…_

But Shikamaru's gentleness with her the week before hadn't helped at all. Just that tiny crumb of affection from that unflappable moron and Ino felt like she was one small smile and an awkward-hug away from crumbling. And what good would that do? Falling apart would only lead to Shikamaru looking for the most logical way to put her back together without coming apart himself.

_He still won't talk about Asuma…_

And _that_, more than anything, hurt the most. Thank god Chōji was there, solid as a rock but soft enough to fall on – but the poor guy was tasked with playing the middle man again.

_Chōji…_

Ino winced, felt the guilt and the gratitude all tangled up inside her. Between her desire to talk and Shikamaru's desire to clam up like an emotional retard, Chōji had his hands full trying to please them both.

_You were right, sensei…Chōji's got the biggest heart…_

And the bigger the heart, the more damage if broken.

_I'm supposed to be looking after them._

Sighing, Ino dropped her gaze and stared morosely at her drying toenails, her attention immediately diverting to the calluses and rough skin.

_Ew. I could file my nails on that sandpaper…_

Happy for the distraction, however silly, she wiggled the lilac-painted digits and sat up abruptly, swinging her legs off the bed and onto the floor. She picked at a scab on her shin where she'd cut herself shaving, smoothed her palm over her legs and plucked a couple of white dog hairs from her purple skirt.

_Eww…I'm surprised Kiba isn't covered in these…_

The stray and unwanted thought found a playmate, a delicious and wicked little memory of where she'd gone yesterday after Kiba's cutting remark had bitten her right to the bone.

_I'll give you something to gnash your teeth over, you jerk._

He might've cut her deep, but being a medical ninja sure had its perks. All it had taken to staunch the flow of her own hurt had been a quick trip to quarantine, a quick signature on a slip of paper and an even quicker transferal. Easy-peasy with a twist of lemon-squeezy straight into the wound she'd be cutting into Kiba's ego.

_Perfect._

She couldn't _wait_ to see his face. Amusement bubbled up the back of her throat and popped on her lips in a soft snicker.

_Totally serves him right._

Feeling more than a little vindicated, she smoothed the collected dog fur between her fingers, fully intent on twisting it into a wiry little knot. To her astonishment, it didn't tangle. In fact, the long white strands felt soft to the touch, almost silky. She hadn't expected that – kind of like the grin that Kiba had flashed her back in the lab.

_Ugh! NO!_

Repulsed by her thoughts, she flicked the dog hair away, passed her hands over her skirt as if to wipe all traces of the Inuzuka from her hands. Shuddering, she pushed him from her head, dropped her focus back to her feet and stared at her lilac toenails with all the glazed enthusiasm of watching paint dry.

_Hmn. Maybe I went a little bit far with payback…_

Just as her thoughts threatened to wander, she beat them to it, rousing herself with a solid clap on the thighs. "Okay! Up and at it." Turning, she set the Team 10 picture back on the nightstand and stroked her thumb over the frame. "I'll take care of them, sensei," she whispered. "I promise."

A door slammed down the hallway.

Ino jumped, her heart leaping into her throat. She flicked a look at the smiling flower-faced clock hanging over her dressing table. It read 6 o'clock. Outside her room, she heard the whisper of her mother's tread down along the hallway, urgent to beat her father to the kitchen even before he'd set foot in the door.

_Of course. She has to set the scene…_

Yamanaka Sayuri had honed her oh-so-selfless virtuosity of drama to a fine art. Not even Ino could steal that crown.

_Don't be horrid. _

Horrid. Not a word she used. Her mother's voice, sharp and thin as those tiny little cutters Sayuri used to prune her garden of miniature bonsai. All snip and clip, no room for nature to take its course – nurture, Sayuri believed, was the root of all things fruitful and lasting. Nature, on the other hand, had a tendency to resist control and embrace chaos.

Sayuri hated chaos in all its myriad forms.

Ino recalled standing in the doorway on her thirteenth birthday, munching Akimichi homemade castella cake, watching her mother perform harsh aesthetic surgery upon a mix of charming pink azaleas, exquisite blue poppies and a stunning bunch of white egret irises. Masterpieces of nature, yet each fell several snips short of Sayuri's insatiable perfection and her sharp ruthless eye. And then that sharp ruthless eye had turned upon Ino, traced her from wild bedhead to callused toes and had begun cutting away, one imperfection at a time.

"_You need to start taking better care of yourself, Ino. You could sand down our floorboards with those dry feet. At least put a dash of polish on those toes. My gods, you have your father's feet, don't you? And his appetite. If you'd been born the boy your father wanted then I'd encourage you but honestly girl, at the rate you're going through that cake you'll have Akimichi-san's thighs! That just won't do. Put that nasty thing away. I picked up some fresh sashimi this morning. You'll love it."_

Ino had hated it.

But she'd eaten it.

Then she'd painted her toenails and worn closed-toe shoes; dragged Shikamaru and Chōji to the rainbow-coloured _NIJI _to drink a mug of lemon water instead of the usual hot chocolate; had proceeded to cajole Asuma into treating them to birthday dinner; had excused herself from the table, stuck her fingers down her throat and left a watery mess of squid, cuttlefish and tuna swimming in Yakiniku Q's toilet. Sometimes, in her bitterest moments, she wondered whether her mother would've applauded her for having the foresight to take mouthwash and a soft pink tissue to dab her lips.

Asuma had been standing outside the toilet, a broad shoulder against the wall.

Terrified, Ino had grabbed onto her temper, spun on her too-high heels and stabbed a finger at him, her face mottled, her eyes too bright. "Ew! Are you peeping at the ladies, sensei!"

Rather than the usual show of embarrassment, Asuma had just gazed at her steadily from beneath his brow and hooked a thumb towards the backdoor. "Going out back for a smoke. Keep an eye on those two for me?"

Ino had grinned too wide, the taste of Listerine burning behind her teeth. "Sure!"

Asuma had nodded, but made no move to leave first.

Somewhat preoccupied with the reflux acid stinging the back of her throat, Ino had dismissed the intensity in his gaze, returned to her seat, gulped her water and had watched the fat sizzle and spit on the strips of pork belly.

Blistering away like that, they'd reminded her of her mouth's tongue.

She didn't eat any – had really wished Chōji would stop saying how good it tasted; had wished even harder that Shikamaru would quit watching her with that weird half-mast gaze that appeared vacant yet was anything but. She'd almost thrown a fit when her cigarette-loving sensei decided to change their seating arrangement and slid into the booth beside her – until she realised with great surprise and greater suspicion that he didn't smell like smoke.

Puzzling over this, Ino hadn't registered the significance when Asuma stretched an arm out behind her and draped it over the back of her seat, a lazy movement that Shikamaru's eyes had followed with a curious squint. It was only years later that Ino understood the protective and embracing gesture.

The front door banged shut downstairs.

Ino blinked back from her memories, her watery eyes refocusing on the clock.

_6:03_

She pictured her mother standing by the kitchen counter, whisking tea with a light whip of her wrists; her kimono – whichever one she'd eventually decided on – would be tailored and tied to perfection, the folds of embroidered fabric following all the smooth lines and sharp edges of her body, wrapped as taut and precise as _furoshiki_ wrapping cloth around the angles of a cold hard _dead _crystal wand.

_Stop it! _That small voice scolded. _She's your mother._

There was nothing Ino could say to that voice, nothing she could offer but a kind of miserable commiseration. Shame slapped across her cheeks, a mottled flush – one of the few things she'd inherited from Sayuri. She slipped off the bed, already dressed – she'd been up since 5 – and went to the dresser, picked up the brush, began attacking the knots in her hair.

Downstairs, the kettle whistled – shrill and loud.

The stairs creaked. A muffled _whump – _her father's trench coat, the heavy leather slung over the banister. Too bad he kept forgetting to shuck his work at the doorstep. Not that Sayuri would've let him even if he tried. She'd dust it off and bring it in, looking to examine and identify all the black stains on his mood, then call him a liar for each irritated explanation or gruff rebuttal.

_Maybe that's why he works so late now. He just doesn't want to come home._

To the marriage, to her mother…

_To me._

A sharp pang in her chest, heart catching hard. That small child-voice inside her balled its fists and screamed. Ino bit down, tasted blood in her mouth and gnawed at the wound in her cheek. She tore the brush through her hair, snarling up strands, yanking them out from the roots.

That ominous scrape of chair legs sounded.

A prop in her parents' scene; her dad _always _pulled that chair out before a fight. He pulled it out but he never sat it in. He kept it planted between himself and his wife like he was prepared for the oncoming traffic. Sayuri's eyes would be blazing like torchlights, her icy politeness and tight-lipped smile as hazardous as an overburdened rickshaw, one wobble away from crashing by the roadside of the oncoming argument.

_6:06_

Dread wriggled in Ino's stomach, a nauseating tickle that began to squirm like live eels as she watched the clock's stuttering hand tick down another 60 seconds.

Sure enough, the shouting started.

_Shut up…_

Sick to her stomach, Ino snapped her hair-tie into place. She tried maybe twenty seconds to scrape at the blonde fuzz matted around her hairbrush. Gave up with a shout and threw it across the room, where it nailed a stuffed purple hippo right between the eyes; Chōji had won it for her during the Obon festival.

Downstairs, something smashed.

_Shut up…_

Sayuri let out a banshee screech that tore through Ino's mind like ragged nails. If she'd been more alert and less angry, she might've noted the anguish behind the scream.

_SHUT UP!_

Yanking on her fishnet elbow and knee warmers, Ino zipped up her purple blouse, snatched up the knapsack by the foot of her bed and ripped open the door. Heartbeat pounding her ears, deafening her to the shouts and sobs, she flew down the steps, rounded the corner and came to an abrupt stop as her father's voice blasted from the kitchen, so aggressive in its outrage that it knocked her back a step.

"—loved him like my own son! And knowing he'd DIE for it! Again, he'd die for it! I sure as hell don't need YOU asking me how the _FUCK_ you think I can LIVE with it! _AGAIN!"_

Stunned silence.

Shaken by the outburst, Ino stood numbly at the foot of the stairs, her fingers slackening around the knapsack's strap. It dropped limply from her fingers, hit the floor with an audible thud.

A startled gasp from the kitchen.

Ino didn't wait for her mother to investigate. She gravitated towards the kitchen door as if pulled, her heartstrings drawn so tight she could scarcely breathe. As a child might, she came to stand partially in the doorway, one hand against the frame, the other balled at her side – and then it went to her lips, too late to catch the gasp against her hand.

"Mom…"

Sayuri's head came up almost listlessly. She sat crumpled on the cold tile floor, knees bent in opposite and inelegant angles, as if her feet had just decided to drop out from beneath her. Her soft cinnamon eyes were wide and staring, the whites an itchy red from the tears that trickled down her cheeks and throat. Her nose was running. Her hair was down, fluffed up at the sides, as if she'd clawed her hands through it.

The crude image almost punched a shrill, frightened laugh out of Ino. She'd always imagined her mother wilting gracefully, knees tucked together and to the side, just like a lady. Always clinging to decorum, even when destroyed.

But not this time.

Ino stared wordlessly until the blood pounding in her head began draining from her face. Her grip tightened on the doorframe. Time must've pulled up one of the chairs and sat down for a while because Ino wasn't sure how long she stood there, staring...barely breathing…and then, as if noticing his presence for the first time, she transferred her stricken gaze to her father…and felt the breath go out of her completely.

"Dad?"

Inoichi stood hunched over the kitchen table, one foot up on the chair, trembling so badly with pent-up emotion that Ino envisioned him kicking that chair clean across the room to crack it in two. He didn't. He leaned into its support as if it were the only thing keeping him from joining his wife on the floor. Sucking a breath through his nose he clamped a hand across his mouth, eyes pressed shut. His lashes glistened wetly.

Ino had never seen him cry.

"Ino…" he croaked, blinking up at the ceiling, his voice strained. "I thought you'd—"

"Loved who?" Ino demanded, stepping into the room. Her voice shook, accusation eating like acid into her words. "Loved _who_ like a son?"

Sayuri shivered suddenly, seemed to come out of her daze. "No. No. No. Please. Please get out," she whispered, her voice so reedy and thin that Ino almost didn't hear her and pretended she hadn't – besides, the words were directed at her father.

Ino advanced on him, leading with one shoulder, her body turned as if half of her – the small and frightened child – wanted to bail out the door as the rest of her – the fuming and frightened teen – pushed forward, teeth grit, eyes filling. "Loved _who_?"

Inoichi wouldn't look at her, didn't seem to hear her any more than Ino heard her mother's repeated mumblings to 'get out'.

"Who?" Ino charged again, childhood fears of rejection and disappointment bubbling up inside her. "_Who_ did you love like the _son_ you wished you'd had_!_"

Before Ino could take another step, Sayuri wheeled on her, twisting around on the floor and rising up with a ferocious screech. "How DARE YOU!" her mother screamed, one hand gripping the delicate lace of her gown as the other swiped out at her daughter.

Inoichi came forward in a jolt, caught Sayuri's wrist.

The slap never connected, but Ino reeled as if it had. Her elbows struck the counter, sent the kettle and cups crashing. Pain splashed along her arms and down the small of her back. She cried out, a broken sound that snapped her mother out of her hysteria. A great heaving breath and Sayuri stilled in Inoichi's arms, turned a shattered look upon her daughter.

Her face washed white. "Ino…" She touched her lips in horror, reached out a trembling hand. "Oh darling…"

Faint with shock and burning up with pain, Ino slapped away the touch, ducked under her father's swooping arm and ran from them both.

"INO!"

Blinded by tears and a blistering fury, she exploded down the corridor, snatched up her knapsack and all but fell out into the street – would've landed flat on her face if her father's hand hadn't caught her by the elbow and yanked her back.

He tried to bring his arms around her.

Screaming, Ino shoved him away with such violence that Inoichi staggered back against the door, his heart breaking in his eyes. "Ino…"

His anguish struck her, brushed her mind.

"_Baby please…"_

Devastated by such a dirty, desperate move, Ino clamped her hands over her head and doubled over, throwing out a wild animal scream that pitched him from her mind.

Inoichi gave a choked sound.

It ripped through Ino's heart. She stumbled away from him, her tear-washed eyes streaking over the house in a glazed search for something solid to hold onto. Inoichi came forward and she swung away, gripped her thighs, hung her head and thought she might be sick.

Her father's shadow fell across her.

He didn't try to touch her again, not in body nor in mind. He just stood there, his presence as big and blurred as the house swimming in her vision; a house that felt no more like home than her father's arms – they hung loose at his sides, as if the hinges were broken. She'd slammed that door, but she glared up at him anyway, hands on her knees, gulping great shuddering breaths.

"Was it Naoki?" Ino rasped, her voice shivering out. "That ghost in our house…that boy from my childhood…that distant blood tie you _never_ talk about…"

He didn't answer her.

So sad, that in her foolish little 6-year-old heart she'd honestly expected him to. But just like with her mother, there was no door to open on that name; just a bricked up wall. Ino wasn't sure what terrified her more, the thought of never knowing just who the hell Naoki was to her family or the thought of finding out for sure. He'd become a ghost in their home ever since she'd made the error of asking about him. To think, she'd buried him her memories with such love and innocence, only to unearth him now with such hate and suspicion.

_God, why can't I remember his face?_

More importantly, why hadn't she forgotten it completely? That vague impression, that fuzzy sense of fondness and warmth. He'd mattered to her. He must have mattered for her to have him in her memories.

_I must have mattered too for him to even be there…_

Calling on that childhood hope still blossoming inside her, Ino searched her father's eyes a final time, sent a mental whisper so soft and sad it trembled.

"_Please tell me."_

Inoichi gazed down at her, his face drawn, his stance defeated…yet his eyes, despite their tears, were so horridly decided.

He shook his head.

The hope wilted in Ino's heart. Yet rather than rip it out by its roots, she grasped that withered vine and ran. Ran from her father, ran from the house, ran from her home and the hurt that lived there, ran and ran and didn't look back.

* * *

They'd hunted him down_._

Fight, flight or freeze. The instincts ran through Neji in a single loop, exhausting themselves in a single breath – then came the stillness. Adrenalin petered out, its dull roar subsiding to a gentle pulse at the base of his throat – then came the silence.

In stillness and in silence, the ANBU team found him.

They closed in slowly, their circle of animal-masked faces appearing from all sides. Neji hadn't fought when they'd torn his knapsack from his shoulder and searched the contents. They'd found his mask, had appeared satisfied. He'd been blindfolded and led from that point on; one operative above, one below, two either side of him with another four covering front and back.

ANBU took chances about as often as they handed them out.

Neji wasn't insulted. He was honoured that they respected his skill enough to take precautions. To assume that he might pose a threat – not necessarily to them, but to whatever mission he'd been assigned to. What he didn't appreciate was their assumption that he'd even _consider_ refusing whatever order Ibiki or Shikaku had cooked up for him in hell's kitchen.

_Hn. If you can't stand the fire…_

Then the kitchen was the least of your worries. Kami, this was the final stage. He'd been preparing for this moment – this mission – for months…maybe even years. And he had the scars, both inside and out, to prove it.

They left him in a room lit by a single bulb with a conical shade.

They locked the door.

Neji glanced around, Byakugan veins twitching; cratered cinderblock walls, mortar crumbling around chipped bricks; a large one-way window with an old curtain rail running the upper length; several makeshift shelves, a shoddy hammer and nail job. The shelves were empty. Boxes limned in sawdust lined the grimy walls. At the centre of the room, illuminated by the single hanging bulb and its carefully directed spotlight, stood a rectangular table and two chairs; they'd been placed on opposite sides. An ashtray sat dead centre on the table, its pale empty bowl glowing a bright yellow-white.

It looked like a basement cellar.

Neji knew it was one of the many interrogation rooms.

He approached the chair that faced the door. Sat, waited. He could hear nothing beyond the incessant hum of the bulb. Structurally, he knew not to trust the four walls of this cell. As with everything in ANBU it was about what lay beneath the underneath; and whatever lay beneath or beyond the cinderblock walls ensured absolute soundproofing.

His Byakugan eyes scanned beyond the walls.

Absolute darkness.

_A barrier seal…_

It masked whatever compounds or complexes lay beyond this matchbox of a room. Even blindfolded, Neji had heard his footsteps echoing as he'd been led across grass and onto cold concrete. They'd removed the blindfold, but the dark remained.

Neji deactivated his dōjutsu and closed his eyes.

A half hour later his eyes drifted open. He gazed passively towards the door as it opened. The glare bouncing off the surface of the table made it impossible to see who had entered. The light cast a small halo about the centre of the room and just like the one way mirror to his right, they could see him, but he couldn't see them. He knew better than to activate his Byakugan again.

Truth to tell, he thought they'd keep him waiting in the dark a lot longer.

Someone approached the table, a shadow detaching from the darkness that walled off the surrounding space beyond the spotlight. Neji knew instinctively it wasn't Shikaku, though for a moment he'd wondered.

The figure remained beyond the reach of the light for another second.

Then a disembodied arm reached out – lean and long, the wrist heavily knotted – and dropped a file onto the centre of the table with a loud _whack _that coughed up dust motes. They glittered in the air, tiny sparks of intrigue.

"Name and rank," the figure said, his voice wooden and devoid of any inflection; ANBU through and through.

"Shirataka, candidate," Neji said.

The arm retracted until just the hand remained, resting on the opposite chair. A gloved hand, a scarred hand. The ring finger was missing. Neji's focus drifted between the file and the missing finger, then up towards a face he couldn't see but knew was there.

He waited.

The man spoke again. "We have four other candidates lined up for this mission. All four have more tactical and combat experience than you. All four are better suited than you. Yet you are here and they are not. Do you understand the significance?"

Neji inclined his head. "I do."

"Repeat back to me what I just told you."

"You have four other candidates lined up for this mission. All four with more tactical and combat experience than I have and all four are better suited to this mission. Yet I am here and they are not."

"You listen well. But do you hear?" The crippled hand pulled the chair back and the operative took a seat. A hard wiry body, all sinew and lean muscle. He wore an ANBU mask; the long cervid face of a stag. He sported the Nara's signature hairstyle.

Neji's nerves tightened. A muscle in his thigh twitched. But his expression remained as blank and cold as that pale white mask. He could've been blind for all the reaction he gave to seeing a caricature of his greatest weakness displayed so tauntingly – so mockingly – before him.

The man cocked his head, a movement heightened and dramatized by the mask. "One mission. One opportunity. You will pass or you will fail. Mistakes will not be tolerated. How will you answer?"

"As I must."

"To whom do you answer?"

"To no-one but my handler and my Hokage."

The masked man came forward a little and the shadows seemed to move with him, tightening like a noose around the table. "I am your handler and until you are deemed worthy to serve the Godaime the only Kage you answer to is me. For I am your shadow. I will be watching, but you will not see me. I will be listening, though you will not hear me. Do you understand?"

Neji nodded. "I understand."

"Repeat back to me what I just told you."

Neji did – and then he was told to do it again.

Satisfied, the masked figure drew back in his seat and the shadows slackened around him. "You will call me Tsuno, should we need to communicate. I will decide when and where and if at all. Do you understand?"

Neji was prepared to repeat it back word for word but Tsuno settled for a nod this time. He set his disfigured hand on the table, crabbed his fingers over the file and slid it across to Neji. "This ANBU mission coincides with your current operation in Kusagakure. While your position as team leader grants you leeway and power, it comes with double the pressure given your new directive."

And no doubt that was the point. Shikaku and Ibiki must've delighted over the opportunity to stick him between a rock and a hard place. But then, weren't some of the strongest elements forged under the greatest pressures?

Neji's eyes hardened to the polished clarity of diamond.

He looked up from the file, stared back at those two soulless eyeholes in Tsuno's mask and sensed that the elder was waiting for something. "I understand that I will be running two missions concurrently," Neji said to indicate he'd listened – and heard.

"And which mission takes precedence?" Tsuno asked.

A trick question – but Neji had expected it. "Both," he answered.

Tsuno nodded. "Very good. In the case of ANBU's directive, there are two parts. You will be running surveillance but you may be called upon to act. This will mean running interference or dealing with an extraction. In the event that you are required to _act_ rather than watch, I will make myself known to you." Tsuno withdrew his hand. "Now. You will read this file. Then you will repeat every word of it back to me." He leaned back in his seat, tipped his head to the file. "We will start with the name of the subject you will be observing. Open the file. Read me the name."

Simple enough.

Leaning forward, Neji reached across the table, opened the file, read the name – and felt his heart stop dead in his chest…felt his throat constrict…felt his blood run cold…felt Tsuno's eyes hot and dark as glowing coals.

And then he spoke as if he felt nothing at all. "Nara Shikamaru."

* * *

"Whoa, Shikamaru, you look ten kinds of tired," Naruto observed, looking ten kinds of overenthusiastic as he bounded over to meet the shadow-nin at the foot of the spiral staircase leading up to Konogakure's aviary. "You feelin' okay?"

Sighing, Shikamaru sunk back on his heels and slotted his hands into his pockets, conserving energy for a moment. "And you look the usual bright-eyed and bushy-tailed," he muttered, but there was no meanness to it. "What? I buy you dinner and now you want breakfast too, huh? Troublesome."

Laughing, Naruto spread his hands. "Are you offering? Cause hell yeah. You finished up here?"

_That was easy._

Conversation successfully diverted, Shikamaru scraped together a weak attempt at a smile. "Yeah. Didn't see any of your little orange buddies up there, just so you know."

Naruto shot a narrow-eyed look at the aviary. "You just had to mention them, didn't you? Man, _you_ try havin' those freaky little things dive-bombing _your_ ass."

Shikamaru held up a hand. "Two words," he said, enumerating on his fingers. "Stupid Bird."

"Hah, oh yeah. What's up with that?"

Another mystery Shikamaru wasn't any closer to working out. He lifted a shoulder, changed the subject. "Sakura and Sai?"

Lacing his fingers behind his head, Naruto cracked the muscles in his back in one yawn-inducing stretch. "Sakura's with Tsunade Baa-chan – something about those crazy soldier pills and not all of 'em being recovered." He frowned, scratched a whiskered cheek. "Still haven't seen Sai since yesterday, but he said he'd meet us at the gates before the mission."

While the failure to recover all the soldier pills raised a mental eyebrow, Shikamaru's attention narrowed on Sai. Hadn't Naruto mentioned something about ANBU? His interest soured fast.

_Tch. ANBU. _

Just one more thing on a crazy long list that he _didn't _want to think about unless otherwise instructed.

_Not my business. Not my problem._

Yeah, funny how that didn't stop the withheld tension from gripping his spine in an unrelenting cramp. Grunting, he rolled his neck and shoulders against the stiffness setting in and began moving off down the path at a leisurely pace. Naruto fell into step beside him. They still had a couple of hours before Neji expected the team to complete their rudimentary tasks and assemble. Any distraction up until that moment was welcome, even if it meant coughing up another coupon for Naruto.

_Come to think of it…that's not actually a bad idea._

"Pancakes," Shikamaru said.

Naruto brightened beside him. "Huh?"

"No negotiation. We're having pancakes at Amaguriama. Take it or leave it."

Naruto's retina-dazzling smile was all the answer Shikamaru needed.

_Good. That takes care of the next conversation I'm not gonna have._

He'd agreed to meet Chōji and Ino for a pre-mission breakfast after they'd finished their chores. Amaguriama was where Asuma used to take them when they were genin. They hadn't been since Asuma's passing. It was the least Shikamaru could do, given that he hadn't visited Asuma's grave in over a week.

His stomach knotted, gave a nauseating growl that had nothing to do with hunger.

Naruto winked at him. "I hear ya."

Shikamaru managed to find a smile for him, felt glad for the company and the cover it would provide him. Breakfast would be smooth-sailing provided Shikamaru didn't have to answer any questions from his teammates about whether he'd slept or why he looked like he hadn't. Naruto's exuberance would outshine his exhaustion – and even if it didn't, Ino and Chōji wouldn't push for answers with Naruto there.

Tactically, it was a sound idea.

They turned a corner to cut past the veterinary centre and walked straight into Shino – well, Naruto did. Shikamaru had lagged a couple of paces behind, felt pretty damn good about it too, considering the dark insect fuzz that began swarming about the Aburame's head.

Squawking his surprise, Naruto backpedalled a good five paces, grinning amiably, though one eye appeared to be squinting. "Hey, Shino! Didn't see you there."

"Of course you didn't," Shino uttered, as though he believed Naruto had aimed to pass straight through him. "However, I'd have thought _you_ might've noticed, Shikamaru. But then, you have a tendency to overlook me, don't you?"

Resisting the urge to close his eyes despairingly, Shikamaru slanted his body to glance over Naruto's shoulder. He raised his brows in greeting and offered a bland closed-lipped smile. "Shino."

A fractional turn of Shino's head. His tinted glasses flashed. "At least you don't deny it."

Shikamaru sighed mentally, reached up to rub at the tense knot forming between his brows. He didn't have the energy for this. Naruto attempted to come to his rescue.

"Hey," the Uzumaki said with raised palms, taking a step in front of the shadow-nin. "Don't be like that. Shikamaru picked you for _this_ mission, right?"

"No. Neji did."

"Well Shikamaru picked you for the Hanegakure one."

Shikamaru stopped rubbing his brow and buried his face in his palm.

_Anything but that…_

Shino's went very still. An insect flittered across his headband and the agitated buzz humming within his aura deepened to an ominous drone. "Perhaps you failed to notice, Naruto, but I was dropped from that mission. Why? I was considered expendable."

Naruto's mouth moved soundlessly for a moment before he grinned with winning conviction and thrust out a thumb. "Yeah but your bugs came in handy!"

Shikamaru's eyes flared.

_Oh hell..._

"Oh really?" Shino challenged.

"Sure! Shikamaru turned them into this neat little bug cand—" Naruto cut off on a spastic yelp, twisting violently as Shikamaru clamped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed – _hard_ – fingers digging into the bundle of nerves. "What the HELL Shikamaru!"

Leaning in, Shikamaru patted his abused shoulder. "Quit helping me out," he gritted through his teeth, appearing to smile.

Naruto frowned, took a breath to respond only to have the air knocked clean out of his lungs when the broad white door of the veterinary centre exploded outwards, slapping against his spine with a resounding _crack. _He pitched forward with a _whump _of expelled breath.

Startled, Shikamaru's brain froze for a split-second. He bolted aside in blind reflex, felt the passage of Naruto's body like a cold wind against his face and realised he was sweating. Shaken, he retained just enough presence of mind to catch Naruto around the chest before his friend could hit the ground – and even then Shikamaru staggered a little, his legs like rubber.

Kiba came stalking through the open door, teeth bared and shoulders rolling, spoiling for a fight. "I'll kill her," he snarled. "I'll freakin' _kill_ her."

Shino took a broad step back, said nothing.

Normally Shikamaru would've been two steps ahead in taking that broad step back, but his quickened pulse pumped a hot flood of anger to flush out the cold fear. The muscles in his throat chorded and his voice came out on a snarl. "The _hell_? Are you _blind_, Kiba!"

Kiba whirled on the voice, not recognising it, his animal eyes flashing with aggression that petered out the second his gaze hit on Shikamaru. He drew up short, head snapping back in surprise and confusion. "Shikamaru?"

Thrown by Kiba's reaction, Shikamaru's eyes narrowed briefly, reflecting the same confusion. He reached for his anger, found nothing but annoyance and merely scowled over a mass of yellow spikes. "Watch where you're going," he growled, flattening a palm against Naruto's wheezing chest, helping to straighten him up. "You're lucky it was Naruto standing there and not someone else."

"Gee, _thanks_ Shikamaru," Naruto grumbled, arching his back and turning at the waist to stretch his sore spine. He shot a narrow look at Kiba. "Oi, what's your problem?"

Eyes still pinned on Shikamaru, Kiba blinked, shook off his puzzled look as a dog might shake off water, head snapping side to side. He ruffled his hair, turned sideways with hands on hips, looked again at Shikamaru and then at Naruto. "Sorry," he bit the word off at the first syllable, began mumbling beneath his breath.

Shino shook his head, a faint movement, but enough to garner him a low throaty growl from the dog-nin. A misdirected irritation. Shikamaru sensed that whatever bug had crawled up Kiba's ass didn't belong to Shino. The Inuzuka's attention was back on the door he'd burst through just seconds before.

Shikamaru hesitated, might've worked up the energy and interest to ask what the hell was going on but Naruto beat him to it. "Did'ja find out where they'd transferred Akamaru?"

Kiba pressed his lips into a thin line and dropped into an animal crouch, arms across his thighs, head ducked, shoulders hunched. He appeared to be breathing through his nose in slow, exaggerated streams.

Shikamaru frowned, glanced at Shino. The Aburame shook his head, a gesture that was lost on Shikamaru given that he couldn't read Shino's eyes or the situation. Great. No more clued in than before, he eyed Kiba warily, deliberating with a deadpan expression; pancakes or drama?

He made to turn away, ready to park his ass in a comfy booth seat.

No sooner had he turned on his heel than Kiba's head came up like a dog on point. The white door swung open again and Naruto's sharp intake of breath stopped the shadow-nin short, along with the voice-quivering amusement that choked the Uzumaki's next words; "Oh man, Akamaru, what did they _do_ to you?"

Shikamaru turned, stared, did a double take and burst into laughter a heartbeat behind Naruto.

* * *

Screams rang out; a cacophony of notes, some shrill and some low, rising and falling in discordant song. Ibiki listened, deaf to the noise, his ear well-tuned to the music that played just beneath the symphony of pain.

A choir of truth.

Where others heard chaos, he heard confession. They all sang for him, even when they wouldn't speak. And it was the song of their screams that filled the chambers of the prisons, echoing deep into the chambers of his mind.

_The mind. _

That's where the gems of true confession lay. Words beaten out of a captive's mouth were a small prize compared to the wealth of treasures buried in the brain – a maze crowded with memories and information.

Ibiki's job was to locate the maze.

His superior's job was to navigate it.

Which posed the question – where the hell was Inoichi?

Standing in front of the one-way mirror of the interrogation room, Ibiki tugged at the ends of his gloves, flexing his sore fingers deep into the warm leather. The arthritic ache gnawed at him, damaged joints healed at awkward angles. But the cold suspicion in his gut gnawed deeper still.

Inoichi was always efficient; yet he'd been consecutively late this past week.

Mushi was always available; yet he'd made himself inaccessible.

Genma was always obedient; yet he'd shown signs of defiance and hints of delay.

Danzō never missed his fortnightly conference with the Council; yet he hadn't shown up.

Efficiency, convenience, obedience and predictability; normally, these patterns of behaviour operated like clockwork. Ibiki saw each individual as a cog within a wheel and he relied upon the commitment of each cog operating as instructed. With each man doing his part, the Council had created a set of delicate but dependable mechanics. For two years, these mechanics had allowed the system of lies to function.

_And now we grind to a halt…_

No surprise. Cogs – or people – sometimes malfunctioned. Genma was a prime example of that. But for Inoichi, Mushi and Danzō to follow so close behind? These failures to operate not only threatened to jeopardise the entire operation, but often attracted the attention of people outside of the system.

_Outside of the lies._

Outside of the room, an unexpected voice carried. "At this rate, all you're missing down here is fire and brimstone."

Ibiki stiffened, caught off-guard.

He was rarely, if ever, caught off-guard.

Popping the tension from his fingers, he pretended to observe the interrogation room beyond the window and surveyed the intruder by way of the glass, eyes hooded under the broad ridge of his brow. "Raidō_,_" he greeted in a blandly pleasant tone, without warmth, without welcome. "What brings you to this circle of hell?"

Hesitation. Raidō lingered at the threshold, feet planted at the exact point of entrance and exit. He made no move forward, took no step back. "You got ten minutes?"

Direct as ever, at least when it came to time.

Ibiki considered how to proceed. He tended to obey the 'ask-no-leading-questions' rule when around his long-standing comrades. This play at normalcy tended to set others at ease, given that most of Ibiki's conversations tended to unfold as suggestive interrogations.

_People skills…_

But that kid-gloves rule didn't apply down here. Down here, this deep beneath the surface of smiles and normality, everyone was fair game. And Raidō was no exception.

"Remind me, Namiashi…" Ibiki turned, a rustle of dark leather, his boots scuffing in a weak cough against the pale concrete. "Were you always this much of a soft touch where Genma was concerned?"

Raidō's stare sharpened. "Careful."

Ibiki's lips twisted, a smirk made all the darker by the long ragged scar-tissue that bisected his face and mouth. "You too. Idle threats piss me off. So does idle conversation. You have three minutes."

Raidō didn't waste his seconds and stepped deeper into the room, hands on hips, head ducked. "Have you seen him this past week?"

"No. Next question."

"I heard he broke into a ryokan last week and got detained. Is it true?"

"Yes."

"And the rumour that they called you in to deal with it? That true too?"

"Yes."

That gave Raidō pause. He hovered mid-step, listening to the gurgle of screams beyond the glass before turning away, eyes on the floor. "Do you think he's unstable?"

Ibiki tipped his head to indicate a breach. "That's a loaded question."

"So you won't answer it?"

"I'm not authorised or informed enough to answer it." He paused before adding. "And I don't see why I should."

Raidō stopped pacing, looked at Ibiki from beneath furrowed brows. "He's _Goei Shōtai_. If he's unstable, that could compromise the Hokage. I have to ensure that doesn't happen."

"For whose sake? The Godaime's? Or Genma's?"

Taken aback, Raidō met Ibiki's penetrating gaze with a tight-lipped glare, his voice as calm as his words were careful. "You looking for some kind of confession, Ibiki? He's my partner, not my fuck-buddy."

Amused at the defensiveness – if not a little intrigued – Ibiki folded his arms with a casual shrug and leaned back against the glass, ankles crossed, eyes hooded. "Tick-tock, Namiashi."

Teeth grit, Raidō pushed on. "Assuming he _is_ unstable, two years is enough time for a shrink to help him get his head straight, don't you think?"

What Ibiki thought was so far from what Raidō would want to hear it might've been laughable if it wasn't so disastrous. While Ibiki wasn't surprised that Genma's self-destructive habits had attracted Raidō's attention, he hadn't counted on Genma slipping this far, this fast.

"Well?" Raidō pressed, scowling at the delay.

Ibiki sniffed dismissively and turned his head at a particularly shrill cry from beyond the glass. "I can think all sorts of things. Still adds up to shit if I don't have the facts." He grunted and glanced back at Raidō. "Educated guesses are worthless. So is this conversation. Talk to Genma. Not to me."

Raidō's breath caught. He seemed pained to speak. "Genma won't talk to me."

The relief of that statement washed through Ibiki's mind, carrying away some of the dread that had begun to float like so much flotsam in his brain. There was still time to fix this situation, provided he dealt with it fast. Kami, as if he didn't have enough chaos to coordinate whilst simultaneously keeping it under wraps. Between Nara Shikamaru's security, Inoichi and Mushi's absenteeism and Danzō's failure to check in with the Council, Genma's drama couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time. Then there was Hyūga Neji and the ANBU directive to consider.

_If he fucks this up…_

Then Tsuno would take over. A failsafe Ibiki trusted, but no less a fall-back if the mission went tits up. Tsuno's words echoed in Ibiki's mind, a murmur from the shadows; _"Be assured. I am assigned. I will not fail."_

"Am I boring you, Morino?" Raidō snapped.

"Genma won't talk to you," Ibiki echoed to show he'd heard, returning to the moment as if he'd never left. "And so you come to me, assuming I'm either informed or interested in your partner's little tailspin."

The callous response had the desired effect. Raidō pinned him with a look of wounded confusion before gritting his teeth against the bitter reminder of just who he was dealing with. While Ibiki wasn't always cruel, he never claimed to be kind. Woe to the idiot who mistook his patience for interest, or his interest for concern. It wasn't personal. Others maintained it was professional. Ibiki had lost too much and gained too little in his life to call it anything other than self-preservation – and patriotism. That too. Always that, if nothing else. Undying loyalty to good leaders – to _great_ leaders – and more importantly than that, undying loyalty to the generation those leaders had given their lives to protect.

_The greater good._

Wasn't that the point of the entire operation? The entire system?

Sighing, Raidō took a step back. "Whether you're interested in Genma's situation or not, information is your forte."

"Within context. And even then, only with legitimate and authorised cases."

Raidō's nostrils flared around a sigh, fingers drumming against his hips. "Yeah? And besides popping pills, dodging his shrink, isolating himself in his flat with a bottle for hours on end – oh yeah, and busting into luxury ryokans like some juvenile delinquent – just what the hell _else_ does an elite shinobi need to do in order to warrant as a legitimate case?"

"A legitimate case of what?" Ibiki raised his brows. "Crazy?"

A flash of temper in Raidō's calm dark eyes. He raised a finger in warning. "Don't do this, Ibiki. I didn't come here to screw around."

"Then quit wasting my time. You want to know what's up with him? He's your partner. Go figure."

Raidō's jaw tightened. "He hasn't been my partner for a long time."

"Are you being literal or figurative?"

Raidō gave a short bitter laugh and turned away, tipping his head back as if to keep from burying it in his hands. He stared long and hard at the ceiling, spoke words so soft that they belied the cutting precision with which they'd been chosen. "When Hayate's illness became terminal, you kept his secret right up until he couldn't hide it anymore. You did that because he asked you to, right?"

Thrown like a gauntlet, heavy and armoured.

Ibiki's jaw ticked imperceptibly. "60 seconds."

Raidō turned to face him. "Must've been hard for you, watching the rest of us throw all that false hope his way. You knew he was deteriorating but you played your part. You went along with it even though you knew what was coming."

"Empathy," Ibiki uttered in a voice as flat and uncooperative as his expression. "That's your play?"

Irritation tightened Raidō's mouth, but his words were soft, defeated. "How would _you_ have felt if I'd known your friend was dying but I never told you?"

"I'd have felt just fine, knowing that's want he wanted," Ibiki said, his shoulders stiff against the glass, leather gloves squeaking as he flexed his fingers out from their cramped fists. "You're out of time."

"So is Genma. How long before the Hokage notices he's slipping? He's worked too hard, come too far, to have his reputation dragged through the mud over whatever happened to him two years ago." Raidō fixed his gaze squarely on Ibiki's scars. "You, of all people, should know about sacrifice for the sake of the village."

Dangerous ground. Ibiki felt the past shifting beneath his feet, the muscles in his legs cramping against the phantom urge to stomp on all the skeletons. "Genma made his bed. Keep pushing and you'll be joining him in it." He snorted, adding quietly. "Literally speaking that might not be such a bad idea."

A disbelieving glare and Raidō sneered, the scars across the bridge of his nose cutting sharper and deeper. "You're one cold sonofabitch, Ibiki."

Ibiki smirked without humour. "Helps with the fire and brimstone."

"Yeah? Bet it helps you to sleep like a rock too." Disgusted, the Namiashi shook his head and turned for the exit. "Consider this the last time I ask you for help."

Under normal circumstances, that would've been a load off Ibiki's mind. In this case, it dropped another problem in his lap; the issue of who _else_ Raidō might involve in Genma's mess. Hell's tits, that's all they needed, wasn't it? Another well-intentioned idiot getting involved. Another spanner thrown into the works, screwing up the mechanics.

He watched Raidō walk away, mind spinning.

_Genma, you've really fucked up this time._

It was the Shiranui's duty to keep up appearances, to lie through his senbon-chewing teeth and to throw anyone – including Raidō –off the scent if they started sniffing around the Kusagakure incident or anyone connected to it. A god damned _miracle_ that Genma hadn't slipped up with Asuma. That'd been the roughest test. While Ibiki had never been close to Asuma – hell, he wasn't _close _to anyone – he'd liked the Sarutobi, had considered him a comrade, a soldier on the same side, fighting for the same goals, the same vision. Not so straightforward for Genma; Asuma had been his friend.

_Yeah, wasn't that always the risk? _

That Genma carried a guilty conscience just waiting to explode. Ibiki had seen Genma for what he was, both then and now; a bloody time bomb. The kindest and safest thing would have been to wipe Genma's memories – but that would've involved Inoichi. And if the Yamanaka had scoured Genma's mind and discovered what happened to Shikamaru…?

_That can never be allowed to happen._

So the Council had dismissed it. They'd wiped their hands of Genma's trauma by handing him over into Mushi's care with the true agenda of planting a spy.

_Cruel._

Hell, Ibiki was a certified sadist but he'd never have done something that twisted, that heartless – at least not to a comrade, a citizen and child of the Leaf. The Council had given Genma an illusion of recovery when in reality his sessions with Mushi were just a string of never-ending missions he needed to complete. A constant reminder, when all he probably wanted was just to forget…or find forgiveness?

Hence the problem of Asuma_._

The Sarutobi's death must've been the trigger. Ibiki had clocked it. It was around that time that the self-destructiveness which Genma fed behind closed doors had begun to leak out…and now it threatened to compromise everything…and everyone involved.

_The Council underestimated his guilt…his sense of accountability for what happened…_

And two years on, that guilt wasn't any closer to absolution. But surely Genma wasn't so far gone as to betray his oath of silence. Or was he? Had he said something to Raidō? Or was Raidō just slinging bullshit and hoping it would stick? While Ibiki's gut hinted at the latter, it was impossible to know without Genma present, which meant hauling him in for questioning.

_I did warn you, Shiranui…_

Another blood-curdling scream from beyond the glass; and for the first time in a long time, Ibiki closed his eyes against the sound.

* * *

Breakfast at Amaguriama turned out to be the same no-show event as dinner at Yakiniku Q. And once again, Shikamaru had to foot the bill.

_Figures..._

Wherever the hell Chōji and Ino were, they owed him.

Sitting at one of the picnic tables, gazing vacantly over Naruto's head at an old biddy power-walking her prize Akita pooch up and down Tea Avenue, Shikamaru forked up a spongy square of pancake and chewed without tasting a thing. It could've been wet cardboard, for all the appetite he had.

_Should've caught up on sleep…could've at least got an hour in…_

At least it wasn't noisy. This early in the morning, Amaguriama's picnic lawn was occupied mostly by young mothers with their little ones and older folk looking for a sweet treat before the day got started and the chairs and tables began to fill.

A good place for a quiet breakfast. Well, in theory anyway.

Opposite the shadow-nin, Naruto's mouth was moving and Shino's head was nodding but Shikamaru had tuned out about ten minutes back, running a mental checklist on all the jobs Neji had assigned to each of them before they were due to assemble at the gates.

_Chimaera samples. Check. Pigeon post. Check._

While he'd finished his own tasks ahead of schedule, it was safe to assume that Chōji was probably still stuck with Tenten retrofitting the last pieces of armour. That left Ino and the question of what the hell had inspired her series of disappearing acts over the past couple of days. Avoidance was Shikamaru's role and he'd been totally usurped. While his brain had already begun working on the Yamanaka Rubik Cube, he suspected one of the most probable reasons for her weird behaviour sat hunched somewhere on the grass behind Naruto and Shino, growling.

Kiba hadn't shut up since the moment he'd sat down. "This counts as animal cruelty, you know," the dog-nin snarled. He sat in a patch of dappled sunlight, legs stretched out in front of him, bent double over Akamaru, working the tiny braids, silky ribbons and flowery glitter hairclips out of Akamaru's fur. "She's sick, you know that? Sick in the head."

Akamaru, his bedazzled head and neck resting on Kiba's thigh, cocked his brows up at the Inuzuka and whined a low throaty complaint. Kiba sympathised by combing his fingers through the untangled patch of glittery fur and fluffy white static.

His dog looked like an electrocuted sheep.

_A girly sheep. _

Or as Kiba had so aptly put it; "_A freakin' lady-boy sheep_." Apparently Akamaru had been given the full doggie-spa works. He smelled like the Yamanaka flower shop.

"Least he's flea-free, right?" Naruto said, one cheek swollen around a dango as he munched and talked. "Maybe Ino was tryin' to do a nice thing."

"A _nice _thing?" Kiba expelled a hot breath through his nose, trying to eradicate the floral stink. He grabbed one of Akamaru's paws and held it up. The dog's nails glittered candy pink in the sunlight. "You see that? That's some _seriously_ screwed up shit! I'm tellin' you man, Ino's either got something _loose_ or something _missing_ in her lollypop airhead!"

Shikamaru stopped chewing, his gaze slicing over Naruto's shoulder. "What'd _you_ do to piss her off?" he asked coolly.

Kiba's mouth hung open then clicked shut. He ducked his head, pretended to pick at a braid he'd already undone. "Nothin'."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, glanced at Shino. "Do _you_ know?"

Shino shook his head, took a sip of his sweet nectar tea and ignored Naruto when the Uzumaki tried to mooch a rice cake off his untouched plate. An insect the size of a raisin skittered over the mint green icing. Naruto recoiled with a shoulder raising cringe, passing a hand over his downturned mouth, his face a few shades paler. He eyed the blueberries on Shikamaru's pancakes suspiciously.

Unable to keep up the appetite act, Shikamaru slid his plate over for Naruto's perusal. He fixed his gaze back on the old lady and the prize pooch jogging up the sidewalk towards them, vaguely aware that Kiba's mouth was running a hell of a lot faster and louder.

"God dammit! I can't even…I mean, seriously, what the _fuck_ is that? That's like five braids tied into one? Are you seeing this shit? Who _does _that? I don't even know what that is!"

Naruto swung a leg over and straddled the bench, blue eyes firing on high beam as he laughed around a mouthful of pancake. "Whoa! They cornrowed, Akamaru!"

Eyes wide, Kiba bit his knuckles and contained his roar to a high-pitched note of pique, nostrils flaring. "She's gone way too far with this…" He shook his tooth-marked fist at Shikamaru. "Can you believe that someone actually gets _paid_ to torture animals like this!? I'm gonna—"

"Kiba." Shino turned his head. "Keep your voice down."

"Bite me, bug boy," Kiba snapped back, losing his focus and yanking on a braid. Akamaru yelped like a kicked puppy. Several people looked up from their meals. A little girl tugged at her mother's skirt and pointed.

Shikamaru frowned, slid his elbow across the picnic table and brought his hand over his brow to hide the glare he skewered the dog-nin with. "Kiba, quit it. We'll get Tenten and Sakura to take them out, alright?"

Kiba sneered at the suggestion, went a couple of rough-and-tumble rounds with Akamaru and got the squirming dog in a chokehold. "No way am I letting _any _girl near him. Hold still, Akamaru…I'm all over this shit…ah…HOLD STILL!"

"Merciful Amida!" Both Kiba and Akamaru froze together as a high reedy voice cracked the air like a bullwhip. "What are you doing!"

Locked in a position of half-straddling, half-choking Akamaru, Kiba cocked his head up and peered through a boyish tumble of dark strands, his expression morphing from wide-eyed surprise to a slit-eyed stare. His lip curled darkly. "Oh you're _shitting_ me."

Shikamaru's thoughts exactly as he watched from under the hood of his hand. The old lady couldn't have been taller than 5 feet – probably smaller – and was kitted out in a salmon-coloured tracksuit that matched the tiny dumbbells clenched in her knobbly fists. She wore her silver hair slicked back into a bun pulled so tight that her expression appeared chronically arched, the thin eyebrows lifting towards her hairline. Her mouth had pursed into an ugly knot about the same size as the squished nose in the centre of her round face. The Akita dog didn't look all that friendlier – it was eyeing Akamaru with its ears pinned and its muzzle furled.

"I _knew _it was you!" the old lady charged. "Heavens, who else? Inuzuka trash rolling around in the dirt, foul-mouthed and filthy. How Kurenai puts up with the likes of you hanging around her door I'll _never _understand. Ninja are bad enough, but you Inuzuka children positively _define _the lowest of that breed!"

"Ume-san," Kiba greeted, showing his teeth. "Fancy seein' you and Preggers here."

Shikamaru exchanged a look with Naruto and they both mouthed, _Preggers?_

Ume-san's fists trembled in fury. "It's _Precious_, you hoodlum!" she snapped, her face glowing a mottled red. "You've traumatised her! Letting that disgusting mutt of yours near her! She was disqualified from the finals because of you! Can't have a bitch in heat, they said. I ought to complain and have that runt of yours neutered!"

Kiba's jaw tightened at the threat. He released Akamaru, came up onto his feet in a slow, dangerous sway that had several people coming up out of their seats around the lawn. A few women began ushering their children away.

Shikamaru sighed, passed a hand over his eyes. Damn, was Kiba seriously looking to square off against an old lady and her Akita dog? Naruto frowned, but didn't move from his seat. Shino had begun turning one of his mint-coloured rice cakes in a slow circle, a calm and calculated movement that Shikamaru followed with a frown. It was Shino's place to yank Kiba's leash, but the bug-handler appeared content to sit this one out too.

_I'm not doing it, _Shikamaru vowed, his gaze back on Kiba in a heartbeat.

Akamaru was the only one who moved. Delighted at his liberation, he whoofed his approval, flopped onto his back behind Kiba and began rolling in the dirt, forepaws drawn up over his chest, white tail wagging.

Ume-san sneered and thrust her chin out at the ninken. "Look at him, learns his habits from you, no doubt."

Kiba moved to block her view, leaned in and lowered his voice. "Why don't you keep walkin', yeah? Finish doin' your little catwalk with Preggers and get her back in time for bubble baths and bedtime stories. Wouldn't want any strays to catch a whiff."

Scrunching her nose in disgust, Ume-san's blotchy face took on a crueller, more conniving cast. "How interesting you should say that," she scoffed, the sound catching hard in her thin and withered throat. "I was starting to wonder that about you and Kurenai. Inviting boys like you into her apartment so soon after her lovers passing! Now there's a bitch in heat if ever I saw one! That bastard child was doomed from the first!"

Five things happened in four seconds.

First, Shikamaru felt something snap. In his head, or in his body, he wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it snapped like a spring, propelling him out of his seat and across the table with such speed and single-minded purpose that he didn't register the other four actions until the last one struck him dead in the chest.

Neji's open palm.

A burst of blue-white chakra.

Shikamaru felt a violent pop and pins-and-needles fizz in his sternum – and then he was flying. The blow pitched him clean off his feet, sent him crashing back against the picnic table with such force it collapsed beneath him with a dry snap. Pain sang through his body. Letting out a high-pitched wheeze, he rolled onto his side, eyes wide and watering as he struggled for air, his shocked heart stuttering under the impact his chest had taken.

"Shikamaru!" A blur of orange on his periphery, a hand on his back, rubbing useless circles; Naruto.

Shikamaru's head lolled a little, darkness creeping in around his vision before clearing. Whatever surge of energy had thrust him out his seat was gone. His body felt heavy, unresponsive, exhausted.

It hurt just to breathe.

Around him, the results of the other three actions unfolded in a kind of dazed slow motion. Shino had Kiba on the ground, restrained but still thrashing. The old woman was sitting on her bony ass in the middle of the sidewalk, open-mouthed and wide-eyed with her Akita dog yapping itself into a fit. Akamaru was down for the count, unconscious but unharmed, his broad white body laid out at Neji's feet.

Wait…

_Neji…_

Shikamaru's heart faltered again, lost its rhythm entirely when he looked up through pain-glazed eyes at the shadow that fell across him.

Neji gazed down impassively.

Those ice-white eyes struck Shikamaru twice as hard as the blow he'd taken. He swallowed hard, his brow creased in angry confusion. He didn't have the breath to speak, or the words to try – realised an irregular heartbeat later that he couldn't actually feel his torso.

Horror gripped him, an invisible hand around his locked throat.

Neji had blocked his _tenketsu_ – shut him down in one single-handed slam. Gut knotting into a ball of ice, Shikamaru's frown deepened, an incredulous fury seizing his face, darkening his eyes. Naruto shouted something at Neji but Shikamaru couldn't hear it above the oceanic roaring in his ears. Pain built in his head, the pressure of his blocked _tenketsu _weighing heavier and heavier until he felt his chakra stagnating to the consistency of concrete.

He could barely lift his head, was pretty sure his eyes were turning bloodshot.

_Sonofabitch..._

Vomit blistered at the back of his throat.

Neji held his straining gaze for a few cruel motionless seconds then leaned down and touched his fingertips to Shikamaru's chest. An incremental spark of chakra, a hot-cold pop and tingle.

The pain lifted, along with the heaviness.

Chakra hummed though him, another pins-and-needles rush, leaving him dizzy, disoriented - and more than a little pissed. Snarling, he twisted away from those lethal fingers, coughed hard and heavy into his arm and gasped at the sweet cool air, lungs on fire, eyes burning, face flushed and hot to the touch. He almost jerked away from the hand that touched his shoulder, until he realised it was only Naruto.

Neji had already turned away from him.

The Hyūga moved across the lawn, his chilling aura settling over the scene like frost. He paused only to awaken Akamaru and to thrust a heavy pouch into the chest of the startled owner. That done, he didn't spare Shikamaru or the others a backward glance and began moving off towards the sidewalk in long smooth strides.

The Akita came forward at his approach, all yap and snap.

Neji used one weapon – his eyes. He had only to look at the animal and the Akita pissed a tiny yellow puddle on the sidewalk and went scuttling behind her gobsmacked mistresses, tail tucked and whimpering.

Neji walked straight past the woman, not breaking stride. "We leave now," he said, his voice deeper than Shikamaru remembered, the rich dulcet tones falling as cold and level as the flat of a steel blade, cutting Kiba off at the knees when the dog-nin looked ready to protest. And then Neji turned the blade on Shikamaru with three short words. "Get up, Nara."

_Nara?_

An old needle into an old nerve.

Shikamaru's gut clenched hard.

Too stunned to speak, he shrugged off Naruto's touch, cupped a hand to his aching spine and got to his feet unaided. Stepping off the rubble, he felt the remains of the picnic table crack and shift beneath his feet in an apt representation of what his ribs had almost done under the force of that hit.

_It wasn't the force of his hit…it was the chakra he used…_

Damn. He hadn't been hit with the Gentle Fist in a long time. He'd forgotten how much of a _punch_ it packed. He'd be aching for a while. He took one step and had to bend over, hands on thighs, letting out a final wheezing cough in order to clear his lungs and shake off the numbness and encroaching nausea.

Maybe it wasn't the chakra that'd numbed him...or sickened him.

Watching Neji walk away from beneath his lashes, Shikamaru's chest tightened with a pain as old and familiar as it had ever been. Swallowing hard, he straightened up again, slower this time...pulled in a rattling breath...felt the pieces start shaking and moving inside him…

And just like that, the game was on.

* * *

**TBC.**

**ENDNOTES:  
**_Mizugumo - _means Water Spider  
_Tsuno - _means horn/antler  
_Shirataka - _means White Hawk  
_Amida - _the 'Buddha of immeasurable light', venerated especially in Pure Land Buddhism.  
_Ume-san - _She is mentioned briefly by Kurenai in OtC. No wasted characters FTW!

**A/N**: Merry Christmas, my lovelies. This latest instalment comes wrapped up in good cheer and my best wishes to you all for the holiday season. Thank you _so much_ to all you fabulous reviewers who have left me such incredible feedback. I owe responses to a few PMs and thank you always for your patience with me. The next instalment of UtS will be up in the New Year. These past two chapters have set the board in a somewhat-of-a-long-ass prologue – and now the story can really get rolling! Yes. The game is on. I toast you guys with my cuppa chai. I wouldn't have returned had it not been for the love and interest you continue to show this story and the characters; my deepest appreciation to each and to all. I always look forward to hearing from you! Until the next post, see you guys in the New Year – may it be a smashing and fantastic 2014!

**A/N 2:** Oh yeah that double-take thing. I'll return after the festivities to hunt for typos and amend any grammatical hiccups. Until then, hope they don't cause too many bumps on the ride. Enjoy!


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